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About us
In the case of the MWBA, the term "Four Fathers" does not exactly fit the bill. Our organization stems from the competitive enthusiasum along with love for BBQ of 3 long time friends. Our founders Grant Mapel, Tim Mapel and Mark Hickmon would like to introduce to you the MIDWEST BBQ ASSOCIATION.
A little background.
Barbeque (BBQ) /barbi,kyoo/ Noun: A meal or gathering at which meat, fish or other food is cooked out of doors on a rack over or aside an open fire or on a portable grill. Or by our definition “The best tasting fun with a competitive edge”! As the founding fathers of the Midwest BBQ Association we have been competing in BBQ for a total of 10 years and have seen many different types of competitions. As any other competitor in any other field, you have your good days along with the unfortunate bad ones. We have always maintained the attitude and mind-set that no matter what if anything else we are going to do one thing, HAVE FUN! When your cooking and its blazing hot, your cooker is just having one of them days where no matter what you do you can’t keep temp or draft right and you just know that your turn-ins are probably not going to be to your satisfaction, the only thing you have left to do is turn that frown upside down and bring back the fun.....And so it begins! The founders are made up of 2 separate BBQ teams that have travelled from competition to competition together and along the way built a strong friendship, traded tips and secrets, grew together as BBQ’rs and have always been willing to lift a helping hand to the next person. Well we had one of them days once and before we where overcome with frustration and defeat we created the stepping stone for the MWBA and we called it the “Dress Code”!
"The Dress Code".
The Dress Code was a travelling trophy that we created amongst ourselves and a couple other teams that we Q’d with on a regular basis. It was simple, who ever scored the lowest in the competition had to wear the most awful dress we could come up with at the next competition and so on. The response that we got from our little inside joke was overwhelming. We had teams from all over wanting to get in on it and wanting to know where we were heading next just to see who got to wear the dress next. However, as with anything, we discovered there was a drawback. Many teams that found interest were at the same time discouraged because of the fact that there was such a broad difference structurally between the separate competitions that it was believed there was a certain level of unfairness (really we think they just didn’t want to wear a dress).
The begining.
We took all this feedback and information from our fellow cookers and we sat down one day and decided it was time for change, everyone should have the feeling and confidence that no matter where they are or how many people are there, everyone can be competitive. The MWBA is born!
