8th Annual Bluegrass Shack Summer Fiddle Contest - Results!

We celebrated five years in New Athens along with our 8th Annual Bluegrass Shack Summer Fiddle Contest this year on July 17, 2011.  It was another hot & steamy day, but we were cool inside the New Athens Community Hall building!  Diane was at it again with her delicious, homemade cakes and cookies, and she even prepared the brats and hotdogs!  I owe her and Brad a HUGE thank you for their help.

We had about 30 contestants, and we alternated between the contest divisions playing and the audience participating in our pre-planned games.  The 12 & Under Division played first, and then we immediately followed that by recognizing Chelsea Perkinson, who is a teacher that has been with us since we opened in New Athens five years ago.  Chelsea is a great teacher, a wonderful person, and is so helpful to us!  She attends most of our vendor setups and helps us out with everything from packing and unpacking, to customer support.  Since she is getting married next year, we decided it would be fun to play our own version of The Dating Game with her and Zachary.  We sent Zachary downstairs, and then we proceeded to ask Chelsea some questions.  When she had answered all the questions, we brought Zachary back upstairs to see if he knew the "correct" answers.  It was quite fun, and actually Zachary did pretty good on the quiz!

We also did several other audience participation games where we had two volunteers at a time come up to compete in several different categories of questions including Fiddle Questions, Bluegrass Shack Questions, and Jam/Jam Etiquette Questions.  At one point, Fred was losing against Tim in the Bluegrass Shack Questions category.  The audience was helping Fred keep track of score by saying after each question, "Fred, you're losing".

The winners in each of the categories are as follows:

Junior III (12 & Under):
1st Place - Colton Dever
2nd Place - Audrey Neel
3rd Place - Patrick Garner
4th Place - Kaylee Roberts
5th Place - Caroline Stewart
Most Entertaining:  Lindsey Martin
Youngest Performer:  Cole Johnson

Junior II (13-15 Years):
1st Place - Rosemary Hall
2nd Place - Paige Johnson
3rd Place - Aubrie Spinka
4th Place - Trista Ogilvie

Junior I (16-18 Years):
1st Place - Kat Dierksen
2nd Place - Angela Winkeler

Senior (60+ Years):
1st Place - John Bell
2nd Place - Zane Prosser
3rd Place - Fred Pringle
4th Place - Andy Talley  (Oldest Performer)
5th Place - Bill Weiss

Open (19-59 Years):
1st Place - Chelsea Perkinson
2nd Place - Dennis Huebner
3rd Place - Liz Durako
4th Place - Joy Winkeler
5th Place - Tim Dever

Our judges for the contest were Janice Nirscher and Marc Renard.  Both are very competent players at classical and bluegrass styles, and both are also excellent judges.  Having judged contests before, I know how hard and unappreciated this job is.  I want to personally thank both Janice and Marc for giving of their time and talents to help make this a great contest. 

Zachary took on the job of score tabulation, which is something that is just impossible for me to do when I am emceeing and backing musicians.  Liz, Cindy, and Chelsea helped with registration, the door, sales, and anything else that was needed.  Too many people to mention helped me with chair setup and/or cleanup.  Lorraine and Earl were busy taking pictures and videos for me, and Earl helped me out with passing out the trophies, medals and prize money.  A giant thank you to all! 

I hope I haven't left anyone out!  This type of event takes everyone working together for it to be successful.  I couldn't do it by myself and I truly appreciate everyone's support!