The weather was a little cool, but that didn’t keep thousands of people from streaming to Apalachicola this weekend for fresh seafood and headliner John Michael Montgomery at the 47th annual Florida Seafood Festival.
As always the oyster eating and oyster shucking contests proved to be extremely popular.
There were 10 men and 3 women in the oyster eating contest – the winner in the women’s division was Francis Fregnell of Fort Lauderdale who downed 104 oysters in 15 minutes.
2nd place went to Angie Harnage of Georgia who downed 97 oysters.
Miss Harnage had won the last three oyster eating contests.
The winner in the men’s division was James Eckert who downed 246 oysters in 15 minutes.
He was followed by Cleveland Hudson who ate 224 oysters and drank a bottle of hot sauce though he only kept them down long enough to finish the competition.
This year’s oyster shucking champ was Robert Daffin of Panama City Beach who shucked 18 oysters 1 minute and 11 seconds.
Second place went to three-time national oyster shucking champion Scotty O’Lear who finished in one minute and 21 seconds.
Third place went to reigning national champ Mike Martin who will travel to Galway, Ireland next year to compete in the international oyster shucking championship.
All three of the top finishers work for Dusty’s oyster bar in Panama City Beach.
Attendance and earning numbers for the festival have not yet been released, though we should have them later this week.
Judging by the crowds and the lack of parking, however, this was a very successful festival.
If you would like to see pictures from this weekend’s event, we have posted quite a few on the news page at oysterradio.com.
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