KCBS judge school trip (long)

[CajunSmoker]

My wife and I left Monroe Friday afternoon and headed out across Mississippi to Columbus to attend the KCBS certified judge class being taught by Ron Harwell and sponsored by Harvey Myrick the contest organizer for the KCBS event "Grilling on the River" to be held in Columbus on April 11, 2008.
We decided to travel across MS on Hwy 82 which takes you through the heart of the Mississippi Blues country just south of the famous "crossroads" of hwy 61 and hwy 49 where Robert Johnson supposedly sold his soul to the devil in exchange for the mastery of the blues and through the Indianola, Ms hometown of BB King.
We made it in to Columbus around 9 PM and got settled into our motel for the night. When we got moving early the next morning, I stepped out of our room and immediately smelled smoke. We grabbed a cup of coffee and my wife left to go explore the town a little and I followed my nose to the smoke.
When I found the source of the smoke, I found Mickey and Bill Fromm of the "Barnyard Roaster’s" BBQ team, cooking the meats for our class. I was wearing my LSU hat in the hostile territory 20 miles east of Mississippi State University, so we immediately had things to talk about. As usual our talk turned to BBQ and I learned that the Barnyard Roasters were Rib Team of the Year last year for the MBN and were grand champions in lots of contests in competition with the likes of Jack’s Old South. http://www.mbnbbq.com/index.cfm?pageid=780 . They were extremely friendly and I spent about an hour with them before the class started. They cook on Backwoods Smokers and they are firm believers in them. They have two hog cookers mounted inside their trailer and one Party that they set up outside.

That is Bill inside the trailer and Mickey loading chicken on the Party and Harvey Myrick taking pictures. The hog cookers are outfitted with Guru’s and were purring along when one of the fans stopped blowing. I called my wife and she came by and we got our hair dryer out and used it until Mickey got the fan back working. I have to say that Mickey and Bill are a class act and I really enjoyed BS’ing with them.
The class lasted for about 4 hours and we tasted some nice Q. It was a nice class and I enjoyed it a lot. I have to say that my time as a brethren really helped prepare me for the class and I really didn’t have any curve balls thrown at me that I wasn’t prepared for.
It was a very enjoyable trip and Harvey and his event guys are great. I would recommend to anyone with an open date to pencil "Grilling on the River" in Columbus, Ms into their calender and I will look forward to seeing y’all there.

[tonto1117]

Sounds like you and the Mrs had a great weekend Rodger! Allways alot of fun to meet all the folks you do "down the BBQ trail".