Ladies State Chili Championship of Texas

Memory Lane

I want to thank those of you that have been kind enough to share with us and I urge the rest of you to get your pictures and stories in...we've got lots of space!

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Beer and Tootsy Pops...no where but Texas.
Photos courtesy of Jeff Ritchey.

 

Just in from John Raven's personal photo album!

Maggie "Sister Margaret" Montgomery, Stan Ashlock and Bad McFad hisself.  No date cited.

Wayne Turner, Richard Rumbin and Bobby Haynes, 1993.

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It all started because Hondo said he wanted  to hold a ladies bust of some sort.

The First First Annual

Jani Schofield and JoAnn Horton were with Hondo Crouch when he answered a classified ad offering nine acres of land on Grape Creek, eight miles east of Fredericksburg on RR 1376. When he said he was thinking about buying the property, they both asked why? He said is wasn’t so much that he wanted it, he just didn’t want anybody else to have it. Besides, it already had a viable egg business and a functioning post office/general store/beer joint which meant it could pay for itself. Hondo and partner Guich Cook closed a deal, and became owners of the town of Luckenbach in April 1971.

Now that they had a town, what were they going to do with it? A group of like-thinkers, buddies and cohorts of Hondo and businessman Guich were sitting under the Oak trees one afternoon throwing out ideas for creating an "event."  A "happening" for the little hamlet in the Hill Country. Frank Tolbett, director of Chilimpiad (first weekend in September) said, "Why don't you have a Ladies Only Cookoff to get these women off my back who want to cook at San Marcos". Chilimpiad was strictly male. Jani quickly seconded the idea as she was one of the women denied entry because of her gender.  Besides, she had never cooked chili in her life.

Having settled on the idea of a chili competition, Hondo called on Jani and JoAnn to tap into their network of media friends and put together a press campaign. Dates were scheduled and DJ after DJ lost control of the interview, as Frank and Hondo, playing off of each other like Bob Hope and Jack Benny, extolled the virtues of chili and sweet talked people into going to the cookoff. The first cookoff, although not crowded, had good pedestrian traffic due to their wise-cracking efforts, and somewhere along the way they even managed to convert one of the DJs into a chili cook.

The 1^st Annual Susan B. Anthony Memorial, was held October 2, 1971 on a nice fall day. There were 19-20 cooks nestled under the giant Oaks outside the dance hall in Luckenbach. The trees are still there but that area is now dedicated to motorcycle parking. Roll call? "Allegheni" Jani "Hot Pants Chili" Schofield, JoAnn Horton, Gloria Hill’s African-American maid, Leola Branch, Mary Grace Horlock in the form of her butler, Cindy Craig of San Antonio, Mary Griffin with a group from Marble Falls , and four female students from UT Austin.

Mary Grace Horlock, married to the president of Pearl Brewery, had hired herself a motorcoach that came complete with a butler. He unloaded all the equipment, set it all up, and following her verbal instruction prepared the chili, all the while tending bar and serving finger sandwiches to Mary Grace and her guests.

JoAnn recalls having used Safeway for her meat. She selected a chuck roast and when she told the butcher she wanted it, "...put through the grinder, just once, with the big blade", he questioned her about it. When she said she was going to cook competition chili with it, he said, "Oh my God! Not another one!" Seems that Mary Grace had been in earlier that day and when disappointed with her order, became irate and threw the ground meat against the wall. JoAnn’s chuck roast was ground to her exact specifications.

Back then the chili was quite a bit different. First off - most of the concoctions had beans in them. Nobody had tried and true recipes, but even at that first Ladies State some of the cooks had their secret ingredients. Jani’s Hot Pants Chili featured a form of Mexican chocolate called molé, and the group from Marble Falls made German chili which was heavily laced with Rhine wine.

When asked about rules being bent or broken (the butler wasn’t a woman), I was told that there were no rules for that cookoff. It was strictly for fun. Nobody really cared who won, except for maybe Mary Grace. Everybody had a good time and although there was no showmanship category, most participants wore costumes. Jani had her hot pants. JoAnn dressed to mimic Hondo, stomped on hat, white wig and all.

Merrilee Schuele , Hondo’s niece found and bought the crown for coronating the winner in a local antique shop. That crown is still in use today. The winners were announced under one of the big Oak trees very close to where the Hondo statue sits outside the general store in Luckenbach. Cindy Craig of San Antonio, married to one of the brewery salesmen won 1^st place, Jani Schofield 2^nd, Leola Branch 3^rd and the girls from UT took 4^th.

Jani Schofield went on to become the first woman to win 1^st place at Terlingua in 1974, and is responsible for the Viva Terlingua slogan. JoAnn Horton kept her finger on the pulse of the chili world as editor and publisher of the Goat Gap Gazette for more than a decade. These ladies have been great ambassadors of chili for the better part of four decades, and I’m happy to report that both will be in Blanco this October 4^th to help us celebrate the 38^th anniversary of the Ladies Chili Bust, the 38^th Annual Ladies State Chili Championship of Texas.

Copyright  LSCC 2009. All rights reserved.

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