SDMG 55th ANNUAL SPRING BARBEQUE

2016 Ugly Rock Contest

By Anne Schafer, roving reporter

Photo: Garry Cannon.

 

ON AN OVERCAST, drizzly and completely normal "May Gray" day at the 55th Annual SDMG Barbeque, thirteen supremely ugly rocks were produced by their proud owners and entered in their own special contests.

Beautiful Ugly Rock Contest supervisors Tom and Lucia Barckley ran a clean election, making sure votes didn't blow away in the whirlwind that took out the Hostess Table canopy.  Now, the anxiously awaited results:

Ugly Rocks.  Just when you thought the taste level had bottomed out, so to speak, here comes Paul Williams's First Place unsightly rock, "Klingons" – also nicknamed "Butt Ugly."  Enough said!  Winnie Pike clearly snatched petrified lips and teeth from an unsuspecting zombie after a dire struggle, taking Second Place with her entry "Ugly Teeth."  Irv Beaman's "Spike" pounded into Third Place, ahead of Robert Bradley's "Fred" and Jenna Warren's "Holio".

Mimic Rocks are supposed to look like something – we don't actually care what – but should definitely be recognizable.  No problem!  Jean Bradley found this little leftover chunk of crystalline gypsum glacier at a top secret desert location, winning First Place with "Ice."  Juan Comer's classy petrified Prada handbag had clearly been run over by a steamroller, so was downgraded to a "Valise."  But, did it win an award, you ask?  Oh yes, my dear, Second Place.  Wayne Moorhead's severed grotesque "Gooey Duck" clam foot received Third Place honors, just edging out Bonnie Mackintosh's "Burro Hoof," Jared Taylor's "Wilson," and Juan Comer's "Human Anatomy."

Embellished Rocks are the most advanced category; not only must an ugly rock be found, it requires decoration!  Jean Bradley struck again, or should I say "stuck again," presenting a robustly round hole-istic rock full of straight pins on a cloth circle, to win First Place with "Pincushion."  Sharp idea!  Second Place went to Amber Tidwell's "Bear Totem," apparently a cross-section cut from a raging brown bear and shrunk down by nomadic head-hunter types, rendering it into a reduced, but still realistic, bruin.

Thank you all for participating and I hope your rocks made it safely home with you.