WORLAND – This year’s 12th annual Pepsi Wyoming State BBQ Championship and Bluegrass Festival kicks off today and Saturday and the event promises music, kid’s events, free admission and lots of barbecue.

Dave Paxton, who’s been involved with the festival for three years, said this is his first year as organizer of the event.

“It is kind of an unfortunate event (how I became this year’s organizer), but I started working with Dale Wagner last year and learning the things he was doing because he wanted to get into the cooking aspect of the barbecue.

When he passed away in the spring I’ve been figuring it out ever since,” Paxton said.

He said the committee worked really hard.

This year they’ll have five of the competitive cookers vending food out to the public so people don’t have to wait in line too long. Committee member Val Busch said three of the vendors are from Worland.

The festival starts Friday at 4 p.m. and runs until 8:30 p.m. that evening.

The day-long event and competition starts Saturday with the 5K BBQ Bluegrass Run and ends at 9 p.m. with raffle drawings, according to the website at http://www.wyobbqandbluegrass.com/.

The kids barbecue contest starts at 8 a.m. The main competition begins at noon with winners announced at 4 p.m.

Busch said this year they have 27 competitive cookers. The competition needs 25 to be a sanctioned Kansas City Barbecue Society event. Cookers come from all over the country come to earn points for national rankings, she added.

Last year there were seven states represented and five Wyoming communities. “It’s a nice collection of folks,” Busch said. Last year’s winner, Rooftop BBQ, owned by Andy and Samantha Allen with Andy as the primary cook, were from Menifee, Calif. Busch said she believes Rooftop is slated to defend their title this year.

Paxton said attendees should expect to hear bluegrass music by Finnders & Youngberg, Newsouth Fork Bluegrass and Old Blue.

Busch added, “I think the music is going to be outstanding.”

There will be lots of activities for youth as well in addition to the Kids BBQ. “We’re going to have face painting, a dunk booth and Tim and Tami Young with a 4-wheeler to give rides for kids and we’ll have lots for water balloons so they could have water balloon fights to keep them occupied,” Paxton said.

“We’re getting a lot of participation from the high school. We’ll have snow cones from the WHS music department, dunking booth from the senior class,” Busch said. She added that St. Alban’s will have their dessert booth.

Busch added, “I think the cooler weather is going to be to our advantage.”

Bone bucks

“All purchases at the BBQ Festival must be made with bone bucks which can be bought at the two onsite bank locations. Bone Bucks are used in order to ensure vendors get paid appropriately. This also helps maintain free admission into the festival,” according to the website