15h Annual Oyster Olympics "Oyster Day" Celebration Raises $36,000 for Puget Soundkeeper Alliance
SEATTLE--Oyster-loving Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels proclaimed March 30, 2004 "Oyster Day" to honor the 15th Annual Anthony's Oyster Olympics. In a day of contests, fun, food and drink, over 600 celebrants at the sold-out, popular, rite-of-spring event consumed 30,000 oysters while raising $36,000 to support the Puget Soundkeeper Alliance. Governor Gary Locke sent a letter extending warm greetings to those attending and commended Anthony's for generously sponsoring these games. And what a party it was--there is something about oysters!
In the zany, only-in-Seattle Celebrity Oyster Slurp "Tall Paul" Fredricks, KMPS, bested 13 area celebrities, including Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis, slurping ten oysters off the shell, no hands, in 8.8 seconds to take the crown back from last year's victor KCPQ 13 Morning News Anchor Christine Chen who came in third. Greg Copeland, Northwest Cable News reporter, was less than a half second behind Fredricks for a close second.
"Oystertainment", creative expressions composed for the event, was provided by Seattle PI columnist Susan Paynter, KIRO TV Morning News Anchor Penny Le Gate, KCPQ Meteorologist Walter Kelley, and Puget Sound Business Journal columnist Patti Payne. Alaska Fishermen's Journal editor John Van Amerongen rocked the room his blues composition "Shucker for Love". "Joy of Oysters" author Lori McKean presented the world's one-and-only Oyster Shucking Monkey.
Twenty-five restaurant teams, including Joe Fortes and the Bearfoot Bistro from Vancouver BC competed in the oyster shucking competition, the largest on the West Coast. Three shuckers from Elliott's Oyster House, Maurice Hernandez, David Leck and Robert Walker, stole the show in sweeping the world's most challenging shucking competition with first, second and third place finishes. Shuckers are judged on quality of presentation as well as speed. In five heats, the competition tests skills in opening five species of oysters: Olympia, Pacific, Kumamoto, European Flat and Eastern oysters.
Heckes Oyster Company of Oysterville landed the big one and won the $500 first place prize in the second annual "Washington's Largest Oyster Contest". The monster mollusk measured 12.36 inches long, 5.70 inches wide, 3.54 inches deep and weighed in at 3.13 pounds.
The 2004 Anthony's Oyster Olympics Lifetime Achievement Award, given annually for enduring contribution to Seattle's oyster culture, was bestowed on Penny Legate and Patti Payne for more than a decade of unabashed oyster boosting and spirited Celebrity Slurp participation.
Each year on the last Tuesday in March, Anthony's-Shilshole closes it doors to the public for the Oyster Olympics and donates its space, food and labor. Additional donations come from over 30 oyster, wine and ale vendors. Since 1990, the event has raised $326,000 for the Puget Soundkeeper. Oyster Olympics was conceived as a way to bring together local restaurants, hotels, grocery stores and oyster growers to have fun celebrating our local oysters while drawing attention to importance of clean water. "Clean water is essential to all of us who love this area," says Anthony's owner Budd Gould.