Letter to the Editor: Rhythm & Ribs BBQ Festival the biggest yet

Published 4:00 pm Wednesday, March 20, 2019

On Friday and Saturday, March 1-2, BBQ grills, live music and the sounds of friends and families having fun took over Fulwood Park. The Rhythm & Ribs BBQ Festival was back for the sixth year and the park was jam packed with competition BBQ teams, vendors of all kinds, entertainment on two stages, activities for kids and festivalgoers!

The weekend, part of a sanctioned Georgia Barbecue Association competition, brought in over 60 BBQ cooking teams, in both the professional and backyard capacity, which was our biggest turnout yet for competition. And all that BBQ was definitely delicious!

The festival Facebook page has been flooded with comments and reviews about the weekend. People loved the variety of entertainment, enjoyed shopping with some great vendors, let their kids enjoy some activities and just enjoyed being in Fulwood Park with some sunshine (finally). The teams that competed have said over and over that Tifton is one of the competitions they look forward to every year! It was truly a great weekend of BBQ, entertainment, vendors and fun! Vendors told us that word is getting around that we are a festival that you want to be at!

We could not make this festival happen year after year without a lot of help! It’s always risky to start a list of acknowledgements, for fear of leaving someone out, but we must try to THANK all those who helped make the 2019 Rhythm & Ribs BBQ Festival another huge success!

First, thank you to the Tifton-Tift Co. Tourism Association and the Outreach Marketing Group for all of your support and hard work in making this happen! And a huge thank you to the hard-working staff of the City of Tifton and ESG Operations; Scotty Brogdon, Michael Mitchem, James Henderson and their teams at ESG went above and beyond to make sure Fulwood Park was clean and ready for all of the weekend’s activities. They came early and stayed late for days before the festival. It was all hands on deck to make sure everything was perfect. You all certainly made Tifton look good with your hard work and professional attitudes. This team also helped load in all of the teams and vendors, which is no easy task when maneuvering around pine trees! They worked hard during the festival to clean up trash, keep the restrooms stocked, clear muddy paths and so much more. We absolutely could not do it without you. None of your efforts went unnoticed.

Thank you to all volunteers! There are too many individual names to list, but many gave of their time to sell t-shirts, answer questions, run errands, and put out fires. Thank you to the Tifton Junior Woman’s Club for providing numerous people to fill a variety of spots. Thank you to Coastal Plains CASA for arranging the food for hospitality and getting it picked up and delivered. Thank you to anyone who just jumped in where they saw a need. A huge thank you to Markevious White, who has shown up year after year to help us in any way we need! We couldn’t have made it through the day without any of you.

Thank you, Chief Buddy Dowdy, Captain Steve Hyman and the Tifton Police Department for keeping everyone safe and watching over property in the park all weekend. We know it can be hard to control crowds and provide security for a whole park overnight, but your crew did a wonderful job. We are proud to partner with all of each year.

Thank you to all of those who were vendors; whether you had food, drinks, arts and crafts, commercial products, activities or information, you helped make our festival grand. This year was the largest group of vendors ever, and we think there was a little something for everyone. Without you, the festival would not have been such a success!

Thank you to our local “celebrity” judges that helped judge the Backyard Competition: Curtis Akins, Jason Clark, Willie Dean, Buddy Dowdy, Dale Hall, David Hilliard, Brandon Howard, Kim Jacobs, Fran Kinchen, Rob Martin, Pete Pyrzenski, Jerome Roberts, Gene Scarbrough, Dan Surles, Colby Sutton, Dan Sutton, Kerry Sutton, Morris Tankersley, Jim Torell and Danny Wallace. Thank you also to all those who came from all over to be a certified Georgia Barbeque Association professional judge. We couldn’t have a BBQ contest with you.

We hope you enjoyed your time here. We know what a tough job eating all that BBQ is!

Thank you to all of our BBQ competition teams! We had teams from right here in Tifton, surrounding communities, all across the state and even some from out of state. Over 60 total teams showed up to give us a taste of their best BBQ. Thank you for spending your weekend with us and supporting our festival. We hope you will be back soon to spend more time in our great town.

Thank you to all of our entertainers! We had a fabulous day of all kinds of music. Thank you to Brent Cobb, Cedric Burnside, Riley Biederer, the Melody Trucks Band, Erin Coburn, The River and the Sweet Auburn String Band. Thank you also to those who performed on our Community Stage – Harvest Studios musicians, Line Dance Fever and the Carolyn Ellis School of Dance. Thank you to the Mood Doctors and the Matt Brantley Band for kicking off our weekend on Friday night with great music. A big thank you to Harvest Studios for providing production on our Community Stage as well. We have heard nothing but good comments about all of the music that was available over the weekend.

A big thank you to those local restaurants and organizations who donated food, drinks and supplies

for our hospitality tent: Papa John’s, Ole Times Country Buffet, Zaxby’s (both locations), Captain D’s, Bojangles, Ruby Tuesdays, Olive Garden and Crisp Gatewood at Gatewood Sales. Also, thank you, Williams Hotel Group, for sponsoring our Judges’ Breakfast on Saturday morning.

A huge thanks also goes out to all of our sponsors. Without them, this festival could not havehappened. Thank you, City of Tifton and Tifton-Tift County Tourism Association: Outreach Marketing Group, for the organization for the festival. Thank you, ESG, Inc., for all of your assistance, supplies, labor, and time.

Thanks to our festival sponsors including: Pork Loin Sponsors – The Howard Center, The Stafford Companies and Wilmot & Powell; Pork Chop – Ameris Bank, Atwater Insurance, Colony Bank, First Choice Title, Kunes Law, Mi-Lady Bakery, Splash N Dash, The Spearman Agency and the Tifton-Tift Co. Chamber of Commerce; Bacon Strip – Collins Event Space, Cooksey Steel, Lowe Electric and Tenneson Nissan. Additional in-kind sponsors include Harvest Studios, Colony Bank, Shiver Carts, Plant TiftNet, Hedqortrs Valet Service and TyTy Nursery. THANK YOU!!

Finally, thank you Tifton and the surrounding communities for coming out on what started out as awet week, but turned into a beautiful Saturday. Fulwood Park was packed all day long, with over 15,000 people, which was a wonderful thing to see. Thank you for supporting this festival each year! We are already planning for next year, for additions and changes. Competition and vendor applications will go live on November 1! Go ahead and mark your calendars for the 2020 Rhythm & Ribs BBQ Festival….March 6-7, 2020!

See you next year!

Rhythm & Ribs BBQ Festival Committee