Ice cream-eating contest is cool way to raise cash for barn

By D.A. Wilkinson

The ice cream will be served on plates. Spoons are optional.

LISBON — Ladies and gentlemen, and children 9 and older — dig in.

The Junior Fair at the Columbiana County Fair is having its first ice cream-eating contest.

Ice cream is a staple at the fair under way through Sunday, especially at the Ice Cream Barn.

But Julie Herron, the county’s Cooperative Extension Agent, decided to have a contest.

The event will occur right after the judging of dairy cows, or about 3:30 p.m. today at the Coliseum.

Cameron Brinker, 18, of Highlandtown, the junior fair board’s treasurer, said he and other junior fair officers and members came up with the idea while brainstorming about ways to make more money.

Proceeds from the contest will go to help pay for the new steer barn, he said. The estimated $250,000 is the major addition of the year and replaced dilapidated steer and other barns.

Contestants will pay $5 to compete in the ice cream-eating contest.

The categories are for adult men, adult women, ages 9 to 13, and ages 14 to 19.

Herron said she researched ice cream contests on the Internet. Obviously, she said, no one wants to make the contestants sick.

That means in part the competitors will all be eating one flavor: vanilla.

Some 400 ice cream bars were ordered and are in a freezer pending the event.

Contestants will get a spoon and a plate. After the contestants are served, the rules are simple: Whoever eats the ice cream the fastest wins.

The rule for eating the ice cream also is simple: “Whatever’s the easiest for getting it down,” Brinker said.

Herron said, “There’s nothing in the rules to prevent contestants from choosing not to use a spoon.”

She added, “People can be creative.”

And likely messy.

Herron said she will be handing out awards after the contest. She plans to have the contest annually.

The agent said she based her belief that this is the first ice cream contest on her many years at the fair.

One reason the fair may not have had an ice cream-eating contest is the warm weather.

The “Items of Yesteryear Museum” at the fair that is run by the Columbiana County Historical Society has milk churns, cream separators, and a four-milk can cooler — but no hand-turned ice cream churn.

One of the volunteers at the museum, Lee Marra of Summitville, said she recalled making ice cream. “You had to wait for winter,” she explained, when lakes iced over.

wilkinson@vindy.com