The World is His Oyster

The World Is His Oyster In 2002, Jack Fauntleroy, BS ’93, fled the stressful life of a Houston salesman and started over in Throckmorton, Texas, pop. 903.

Now he’s a jack of all trades and organizer of the town’s biggest event, The World Championship Rocky Mountain Oyster Festival.

This city boy was ready for some small town living.

But was the small town really ready for him? b y T i m Ta l i a f e r r o

Mack and Jack, at the World Championship Rocky Mountain Oyster Festival in Throckmorton. Photo by Larry Grater

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he town of Throckmorton has at its center a lone flashing-red light, the only traffic light for 30 miles in any direction. It shines a slow, drowsy blink. Along the main drag, a 12block strip of U.S. Hwy 183/283, stand a few shops, the county courthouse, a nursing home, and three churches. Like many old Texas towns, Throckmorton has the feel of a relic, as though the march of history somehow passed it by.

Yet just outside of town, over a modest hill that protects Throckmorton from tornados, life stirs at the town rodeo grounds.

Teams from around the state have come to participate in the World Championship Rocky Mountain Oyster Festival, one of only four major calf fry cook-offs in the country. They’ve come for three days of beef and beer, for live music and a chance to win some prizes. From the hill above, the scene looks like a carnival, and even from here, the smells are fantastic.

Five years ago Jack Fauntleroy, BS ’93, moved to Throckmorton and with his friend Mack Pirtle started the festival as a way to show off an Old West tradition and attract some visitors to the town. For many years Jack had harbored a desire to start a cook-off, and that desire became more acute when he moved from Houston in 2002. Chili, maybe, or brisket or ribs. Not mountain oysters, those bits of anatomy whose removal turns a bull into a steer.

But Mack had known a guy back when he went to Angelo State who used to host a calf fry, and it had always been a success.

Mountain oysters do pack a certain marketing punch that less provocative, albeit more savory, parts of bovine anatomy do not.

So Jack agreed to mountain oysters on the condition that chili, brisket, baby-back ribs, pinto beans, and Dutch-oven cobbler be included, too. They had a deal.

On a Friday this past May, Jack and Mack climbed atop a flat-

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bed trailer at the center of the rodeo grounds and welcomed 39 teams to the fifth annual World Championship Rocky Mountain Oyster Festival. Even after five years, Jack still lets slip a sly smile every time he says the name, his tongue firmly in cheek.

World championship? As though deep-fried calf testicles were a global delicacy. (It’s a marvel they survived the 19th century.)

But the crowd of blue jeans and cowboy hats was itchin’ to get started with the first competition of the festival — the Tastes Like Chicken contest.

All morning teams had been arriving from around the state.

At one point the shoulder of the two-lane highway stretching north out from Throckmorton and past the rodeo grounds was clogged with dually pick-up trucks towing fifth-wheels, waiting to be assigned a spot on the Megan Fauntleroy, Throckmorton County Tribune grounds. Last year a brutally dry spring had left the fair grounds parched and dusty. This year a constant drizzle has packed the dust down into a sticky brown mud.

The co-founders roam the grounds directing traffic, shaking hands with old friends and meeting new ones. As teams pull in, Jack or Mack will walk up to the passenger window, consult a printout, and with some pointing and gesturing send the team off in the direction of their site.

Once teams find their spot, they park their RVs and take to setting up camp. Men pull diesel generators from the back of their diesel trucks and fire them up. Women hang lights around the campsite and trash bags on the doors to their RVs. Kids take off to explore on ATVs. Fences appear, and booths, and stands covered in trophies from previous cook-offs around the state.

Several teams hoist flags: Old Glory, the Lone Star, the Southern Cross. A few, like teams Get ’er Done and Who’s Ya Daddy, fly their own flags, too.

I’d never been to Throckmorton before I went in May. The first I’d even heard of the town was a year prior, when I got a call from Fauntleroy, who thought I might be interested in hearing about a cook-off he had started in a tiny town shouldering up to the Panhandle. While the native Texan in me was intrigued, the city slicker was nervous. I’d been to cook-offs before but nothing like this. Mine had been decidedly urban affairs, in backyards or at apartment pools, where we clicked on the gas grill and cooked burgers. What Fauntleroy was talking about seemed older and grittier, more authentic but a bit foreign, with smoker grills and chuck wagons and rodeo grounds. I didn’t even know what mountain oysters were.

But Jack was insistent. I would eat, sleep, and drink for nothing. If I could just get there, he was sure he could make it worth my while. And he was right.

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he had been selling radio advertising for 93Q Country. Before fter Jack and Mack finish their introduction and welHouston, he’d spent seven years at Clear Channel in Austin and come, the teams wander back to their camps to start was the President’s Club winner, meaning he did the most sales cooking. The only rule for the Tastes Like Chicken conin the office. It was his first job out of UT, and he was good at test isn’t really a rule at all: cook anything you want that “tastes it — a charismatic yuppie gunner. When, in 2000, Clear Channel like chicken.” If that sounds a bit vague, rest assured that that’s acquired KASE and KVET, his boss left for Houston and Jack folthe idea. Really it’s license to cook whatever exotic game you lowed suit. want, regardless of whether it tastes like chicken or not. What’s But he and Houston weren’t a fit. The constant pressure to sell important is that it tastes good. was starting to burn him out, and his girlfriend, Megan Kelly, BBA The judges for the Tastes Like Chicken contest are mostly ’00, who had just graduated from UT, was having a tough time close friends of Jack or Mack, plus a last-minute celebrity judge, finding work in Houston. He missed her, and he missed Austin. three-time Emmy-nominated actor Barry Corbin, and his friend Watching the Twin Towers come crashing down on September Barbra Connally. Corbin’s best known as Roscoe Brown in Lone11 wounded Jack deeply. “Those people died on a Tuesday, gosome Dove (1989) and Maurice J. Minnifield in Northern Expoing to jobs they probably hated,” he explains. “I bet if they could sure (1990-95). Corbin and Connally had stumbled across the have it back, they would do something else.” In Houston, Jack cook-off’s Web site and called Jack to see if they could crash the worked in the building that housed the Egyptian consulate, and party. in the days and weeks after 9/11 was forced to evacuate several Together the judges walk from camp to camp, where they each times. “We had to get up and run outside the building because we receive an hors d’oeurve-size portion of whatever it is that althought it was going to be blown up,” he says. The evacuations legedly tastes like chicken. They are offered an accompanying were constant reminders that this job he hated, if he kept at it, adult beverage at each camp, although after the fourth or fifth might literally kill him. stop, none of the judges seem interested in further complicating the challenge the food alone is putting to their digestive systems.

At each camp, the judges spend five min- Watching the Twin Towers come crashing down on September utes socializing. Mostly it’s a chance for Jack and Mack to shake hands with repeat partici- 11 wounded Jack deeply. “Those people died on a Tuesday, pants and to compliment them on their setups, going to jobs they probably hated. many of which approach extravagance. Team Smokin’ Morning Wood has built an entire saloon for serving food and drinks. The folks at Hell’s Kitchen play a game of horseshoes using toilet seats. But it’s rainy and surprisingly cold for May, now that the sun has set, and there are 39 camps to get around to, so the group doesn’t The destruction of the World Trade Center had had its desired linger. effect, dealing a blow to the nation’s economy. In the following The menu ranges wildly, though the judges don’t find out what months, advertising sales tanked as big companies slashed their they’ve put in their mouths until after they’ve swallowed it. It ad budgets. Then Enron went under, and Houston spiraled down. starts with frog tacos. The next team serves crappie. Then it’s osNow not only was Jack hating his job, he wasn’t making any montrich… pigeon… rattlesnake, and so on across the various phyla ey either. The final incentive to stay was gone. of the animal kingdom. The eventual winner: alligator oysters.

At about the same time, Jack’s mother, Tillie, called from ThFor as much as the food and drink varies, the same set of inrockmorton. In a move that would foreshadow Jack’s own, Tillie teractions accompanies each visit: friendly words of welcome, had returned to the town of her birth in the wake of her own some quick jokes and hearty laughter, and, most starkly, absolute urban trauma — being caught out on the streets of Los Angeles awe of Barry Corbin. The fact that he was in Lonesome Dove during the 1992 Rodney King riots. Shaken, she decided to leave lends him incredible star power here – he is the very embodiment California and return to Texas. In 1995, she came back to Thof the culture we’ve all come here to celebrate. People line up to rockmorton, exactly 50 years after she had left it, to start a bed shake his hand and tell him how big of fans they are. He poses for & breakfast. pictures and signs autographs.

Tillie was calling to say she could no longer manage the house Remarkably the judges appear to have had the prescience to by herself. She would have to sell it. For Jack, it was a sign. He pace themselves so that even at the last camp, all of them find told his mother not to sell, and a few months later, in August room to sample one final entry. Then they retire to a tent and 2002, he and Megan, recently married, moved in with his mom. It a campfire to escape the rain and discuss possible winners. A was a lifestyle change, for sure. few camps can still be heard carousing in the distance, but most people have turned in. Tomorrow will be a long day of cooking. here is no police station in Throckmorton, only a sheriff and n many ways John Owen “Jack” Fauntleroy is an unlikely a deputy, because there is no crime. Kids ride their bikes person to find living in Throckmorton, a rare urban-to-rural unsupervised, and people leave their doors unlocked. The transplant when since World War II the flow has tended to majority of the town’s citizens own and listen to police scanners. run the opposite way. He moved from Houston in 2002, where The lady across the street from the Fauntleroys owns two: one in

I bet if they could have it back, they would do something else.”

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1 1. Adding to the Northern Exposure-ness of it all, members of Team Get ’er Done wait to meet celebrity judge and actor Barry Corbin. Photo by Larry Grater 2. The bar at Hell’s Kitchen. 3. The Caddo Cookers’ site. Photos by Jenn Giles

the living room and another in the bathroom, so she doesn’t miss anything. Once, the neighborhood cats surrounded a rattlesnake in someone’s front yard, and when a neighbor called for help, the sheriff and deputy, the volunteer fire department, and nearly every resident on the street turned out to help. While the authorities debated how best to kill the thing, a man walked over to his garage, grabbed a gardening hoe, returned to the scene, and lopped off the serpent’s head.

The town of Throckmorton occupies 2.5 square miles at the crossroads of Highways 183/283 and 380, halfway to Abilene from Wichita Falls and a solid two hours west-northwest of Fort Worth in the center of Texas’ rolling plains. It is the seat of Throckmorton County, est. 1879, and named for William E. Throckmorton, an early settler and renowned doctor. Its “downtown” district boasts a lovely courthouse built in 1890, a veterans’ memorial, and a general store. But many of its old buildings stand empty.

Compared to the rest of Texas, Throckmorton’s population is older, has less money, and pays higher property-tax rates. Out of 254 counties in Texas, it is one of 46 that are dry. About 90 percent of its population is white and Christian, largely Baptist, especially the town’s old guard, but some Church of Christ and Methodist. In the 2004 presidential election, 76 percent of Throckmorton County voted Bush/Cheney.

Ranching, farming, hunting, and oil form the four cylinders of Throckmorton’s economic engine. The vast majority of Throckmorton County’s 586,000 acres goes toward beef-cattle production. Wheat is the cash crop, with some cotton and sorghum hay.

While Throckmorton never quite felt the oil boom of the early 20th century, oil derricks dot the countryside and bring in royalties.

Even though Jack himself is a relative newcomer to town, an urbanized, modernized, college-educated one, his family roots run deep into Throckmorton history. His maternal great-grandfather, grandfather, and several uncles worked on the massive Swenson Ranch just west of Throckmorton. Two uncles still do.

His mom lived here until her father was killed on an oil rig in 1941 and her mother remarried.

Jack’s UT connections run deep, as well. After serving in the Pacific during World War II and fighting on Iwo Jima, his father, 56 The Alcalde November/December 2007

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the bathroom set with her. He went back to the same Bed, Bath & cent of the county’s population. Its leaders tend to be deacons in Beyond, and whom should he see there working but Megan. She the Baptist church. They support the ban for religious reasons, helped him pick out new towels again, but this time Jack invited and for them it’s a point of pride that Throckmorton is in the her to get coffee. She agreed, though they ended up going back minority of Texas’ dry counties. to his apartment for beers instead. “We probably threw the coffee It can generally be said that where Throckmorton citizens out the window,” says Jack. Shortly thereafter, Megan graduated, come down in the wet/dry debate informs whether they view the joined Jack in Houston, and the two were married. They now World Championship Rocky Mountain Oyster Festival with enhave a 20-month-old, Olivia. thusiasm or skepticism. On the weekend of the fifth annual cookFor Jack and Megan to make ends meet in Throckmorton, they off, a large contingent of the Baptist parents in town have sent do a little bit of almost anything. “You have to have several balls their adolescent and teenaged children to the beach so they are in the air in a town like this,” he says. Aside from Fauntleroy not exposed to the drinking and dancing that happens at the fesBed & Breakfast, Jack and Megan also run the Fauntleroy Hunttival. Neither Jack nor Carroll understands this. “There’s drinking ing Lodges, which bring in money during dove and deer seasons. at the rodeos many of these same people attend with their kids,” They started Jack’s Pizza, the only pizza-delivery service in town, says Carroll, “but they don’t seem to have a problem with that.” using Megan’s mom’s recipe and hand-rolling the dough every morning. nimal genitalia have been on the menu probably for as Megan possesses an uncanny cooking talent, which, aside long as humanity has eaten meat. Ancient Romans thought from supplying the flair to the breakfast part of Fauntleroy B&B, that organ ailments in humans were best treated by eating has enabled her and Jack to provide the town’s only catering sera healthy, corresponding organ from an animal. Even today in vice. Their gigs range from most of the town’s fancy parties to parts of Asia, animal genitals are considered aphrodisiacal. But the 700-mouth Throckmorton High School Homecoming. Once a in Texas and Montana and all along the old Midwest cattle drives, year, Miss Texas rolls through town, and the Fauntleroys cater.

Rocky Mountain oysters — swingin’ sirloin, cowboy caviar, Shortly after he arrived in Throckmorton, the local bank asked Montana tendergroin, bull balls, huevos del toro — survive Jack to start an insurance arm for them, thinking he was probamainly as cultural artifacts, kept alive through festivals and a bly the only guy in town who could pass the licensing test, which vague nostalgia for the Old West. he did. But he didn’t much like insurance so he got his real estate The calf genitals that today are to be deep-fried, sautéed, license and now sells old family ranches that are being bought poached, or braised and then submitted for judging have been up by DFW-area hunters for leases. The real estate world suits supplied by local ranchers. Every so often over the course of him, as selling land engages many of the same innate talents that the year, Jack will get a knock at his front door and a rancher made him so good at selling radio ads. He closed his first deal the will hand over a zip-lock bag full of them, freshly — how do you week before the cook-off. say — rounded up. They then sit in his freezer until the Saturday Jack, 38, is president of the Throckmorton Chamber of Commorning of the festival, when Jack hauls them in coolers to the merce. He’s also wildly popular with the town’s young people, rodeo grounds. all of whom know his name and he theirs. He’s a voice for progMountain oysters come first in the queue of contests, so after ress, an advocate of change, and he’s opinionated. Mayor Will Jack and Mack re-welcome everyone to the festival around 10 Carroll, at 44 also a young guy by Throckmorton standards, says he and Jack are a lot alike. “We know what we want and how we want to do it.”

Even though Jack himself is a relative newcomer to town, One thing Carroll and Fauntleroy both want is to repeal Throckmorton’s alcohol ban. an urbanized, modernized, college-educated one, Their reasons have mostly to do with money.

Throckmorton runs off of sales-tax revenue, and, despite the ban, the mayor and Chamber of Commerce president insist that the overwhelming majority of people do drink, they simply drive the 30 miles to the county line to buy their booze. When they do so, though, those neighboring communities get the sales-tax money. Mayor Carroll gets hot just talking about it. In the course of his time as a.m., the teams head straight for the coolers. For each contest, mayor and on the city council, he has seen Throckmorton teeter any team wishing to participate comes to the judges’ table and on the edge of bankruptcy and narrowly escape. And he insists gets a Styrofoam to-go box, half of a raffle ticket, and, for the calf that repealing the alcohol ban would bring in enough revenue to fry, the testes themselves. The judging for calf fries is at noon; help run the town and lower its high property taxes. then it’s chili at 1, pinto beans at 2, brisket at 3, baby-back ribs at The alcohol issue seems to be the one exception to the maxim 4, and finally Dutch-oven cobbler at 5. that in small towns nobody likes to be told what they can and Teams turn in their to-go trays at the appointed time, and volcan’t do. The same town that vehemently refused to pass an ordiunteer judges then sample each entry. There’s bottled water on nance prohibiting the use of fireworks inside the city limits after the tables but by midday the supply has run out, and the judges 10 p.m. approved a ban on selling alcohol. Support for the ban take to cleansing the palate with the occasional swig of beer. comes mostly from the 65+ demographic that composes 20 perThe judges rate as they go, marking on a sheet of paper a score

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Owen William “Buzz” Fauntleroy, enrolled at UT, pledged Delt, and became a cheerleader and Texas Cowboy. He graduated in 1948 with a geology degree and went to work as an independent geologist, drilling wells all across the Southwest. Jack’s two older siblings both attended UT. His brother, Kyle, played baseball for Coach Gustafson before being drafted into the minor leagues and spending a few years on the Cubs’ and then Pirates’ farm teams. He’s now a commander chaplain in the U.S. Navy. Nina Lee Fauntleroy Hagan, BS ’82, Life Member, their sister, studied education and now lives in Memphis.

Jack was an accident, the result, his father once told him, of “one too many margaritas one night.” He was born in L.A. The family moved to Abilene when he was 7, to Tulsa when he was in middle school, and finally to Dallas before his senior year of high school. He spent that year sitting the bench on the Highland Park baseball team. An ’80s child and free spirit, Jack wore bandannas and holey jeans and played guitar. He was also a strong student, a perfect fit for UT and Austin.

During college he studied communications and played guitar on Sixth Street. He painted – wild, abstract pieces that took up entire wall-sized canvases. He didn’t meet Megan until after college. He was at the time dating a girl seriously and had gone to shop at Bed, Bath & Beyond to buy her some stuff for their bathroom. Megan, then in college and an employee at the store, helped him pick out some things, and Jack bought them, thinking nothing of it. Megan, meanwhile, went home that night and told her roommate she’d met the man she was going to marry.

Lo and behold, a year later Jack’s girlfriend hit the road, taking

his family roots run deep into Throckmorton history.”

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Above: Jack’s father, Owen “Buzz” Fauntleroy, on left, with Ty Cobb and Barefoot Sanders at the 1947 Texas vs. Texas Tech game, which Texas won 33-0. Right: Jack’s maternal grandfather, W.J. King, at left, on the Swenson Ranch. Facing page: Jack with daughter Olivia, 1. Photo by Larry Grater

between 1 and 10. Once every entry has made its way around to every judge, Jack and Mack collect the sheets and tally the scores. Any remaining samples are then set out to be scavenged by the crowd.

Outside the judges’ tent, the rodeo grounds buzz with activity.

A bright morning sun has replaced last night’s rain, and spirits are high. People wander from camp to camp, sampling food and drinks. A DJ blares country music. Several vendors have set up in a row along the west end of the grounds, and shoppers pop in and out of each, perusing the collections of mounted longhorn skulls and turquoise jewelry and carved wooden crosses and imitation Buck knives. One vendor sells only leather products. A little down the way, another features John Deere paraphernalia, all covered with little green tractors.

Beneath a bright blue tent, a reminder of small-town rural life: two men in EMT uniforms sign up people for the Air Evac Lifeteam. For $50 a year, members pay nothing in the event that they must be life-flighted out of Throckmorton to a regional hospital. The men point out that the cost to fly someone to the hospital runs around $10,000, and few insurance carriers cover it, as Jack and Megan found out the week before when Megan’s mom had to be flown out after suffering a heart attack.

At the far end of vendor row, a gangly proprietor with a hat reading “Rebel” struggles to dump rainwater from a tarp sagging low over his merchandise. As soon as he pushes up on one side of the tarp the water slides toward the edge, but he can’t reach high enough, and the water soon retreats back to the center. He’s having a maddening time, trying one side then the other. Being 6’-2”, I walk over and offer to help, and after a few tries we have the water pouring over one side.

His name is Dennis, though he goes by “Slim.” He lives in nearby Stamford, site of the largest amateur rodeo in the world, he tells me. Slim was a painter for 35 years and now mows lawns 58 The Alcalde November/December 2007

and replaces light bulbs for widowed women. He spends most weekends driving his converted ice cream truck to festivals like this one and selling stereo equipment, musical instruments, and do-rags. Several guitars and fiddles sit out under the tarp; the stereos he keeps in a pop-up he tows behind the truck. He tells me he’ll give me a good deal on anything he’s got. Everyone can win in a transaction, he says. “That’s my business philosophy.”

When I tell Slim that I’m up from Austin for the festival, he says he was recently in Austin and marveled at how it had changed.

In the course of the conversation I find out that he was last there in 1986. We chat about his merchandise for a little while longer before I stand up to go. As we shake hands, he looks me square in the eyes and says, “You’re a good person. Hell, you might even be a Democrat, but I don’t care. You’re a good person.” With that we say goodbye, and I return to the judges’ tent just in time for the final competition, Dutch-oven cobbler.

A Dutch oven is cast-iron pot, and the smoke from several of the open fires that heat them swirls above the grounds. Most teams turn in their cobbler still hot. Some have the foresight — or perhaps it’s hindsight — to add a scoop of ice cream to their submission, though that’s technically not supposed to be factored into the judge’s ratings. Once the lids of the many boxes pop open, a symphony of smells rises up. Steaming blueberry, peach, apple, boysenberry, blackberry, and strawberry cobblers, and a host of combinations vie for the judges’ highest ranking.

After it’s over, there’s not a bit left, a cruel disappointment to any salivating bystanders.

There’s not much time for moping, though, as Jack and Mack are headed to the flatbed to start the awards presentation. The many teams have gathered around, sitting at the picnic tables that surround a slab of concrete at the grounds’ center. Aside from trophies and ribbons for the various contest winners and runners-up, there’ll be raffle prizes: a barbecue pit, a .22 rifle,

$100 gift certificates to Wal-Mart and Academy. The grand prize was going to be a helicopter ride courtesy of Air Evac, but the crew had to renege when they were called in to a rescue. As a replacement, Jack and Mack have offered up an 82-quart cooler filled with cans of Busch Light.

Since the judging was double blind, neither Jack nor Mack nor anyone else knows who the winners are until they call out the raffle numbers and see who steps forward. A moment of silence typically separates the calling of the last digit from the winner’s whoop. An arm shoots up from the crowd and a fist pumps.

People clap, especially teammates, and there’s a good amount of jeering at friendly rivals. Winners make their way to the trailer for trophy and photo.

Jack and Mack save the announcement of who cooked up the tastiest mountain oysters for the finale. There’s an explosion of sound when Jim and Cynthia Stout of Seymour are announced the winners, most of it coming from somewhere deep inside Jim’s broad chest. He and his wife jog up to the trailer and receive their trophy, custom-made by a local artist. They’re plainly ecstatic at having won and cradle the trophy like a child. Later, after everyone has gone back to their camps, Jim Stout takes a painstakingly slow victory lap around the rodeo grounds on the tractor that he and his wife converted into a barbecue grill and used for the competition.

Before the crowd disperses, Jack and Mack invite everyone to stay for a night of live music and dancing. A country swing band will open for Brazos Stone, an up-and-coming band of local high school grads with a substantial following among the area’s young people. After months of planning and several long days, Jack’s ready to let loose and have some drinks. He encourages everyone interested to do the same, and the crowd roars with approval. “We’re gonna sin tonight and pray for forgiveness tomorrow,” he says. And with that, jumps down from the trailer, kisses his wife, picks up his daughter, and cracks open a beer.

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eeing Jack walk the grounds, charm the patrons, and smile at vendors gets me thinking about Northern Exposure and the similarities between the show’s main character, Joel Fleishman, and Jack. Like the fictional Fleishman, Jack left the city life for a rural one. Like Fleishman, Jack brings certain sensibilities to a small town that people both admire and suspect. It’s even a bit spooky how they share the same initials.

The starkest difference between the two men is that Jack has become the great promoter of Throckmorton in a way that Fleishman never did for the fictional Cicely, Alaska. Jack, the guy from the city, is the one who started the cook-off and is the city’s strongest advocate. He spends his days convincing people from the cities to buy land he himself has come to love. He runs a bed & breakfast designed to offer people sanctuary from city life. As chamber of commerce president he considers it his mission to “make sure everyone living here has what they need.”

For as much as Jack loves the small-town life and for all of his efforts to integrate into it, he remains somewhat of an outsider.

He’s got the blue jeans and hat, but wears tennis shoes instead of boots. Among the rows of trucks parked at the rodeo grounds, Jack’s Toyota Tundra is the only one I can find not made by Ford, Chevy, or Dodge. He started a mountain oyster contest, but doesn’t eat the things. “Mountain oysters are a marketing tool for me,” he says. “They’re not a lifestyle.”

The sole moment of real conflict at the cook-off comes shortly before 9 p.m. when Brazos Stone arrives and begins setting up.

The swing band had angled to play at last year’s festival, but Jack had booked others already. As a favor to one of the band members, Jack hired them this year. They began playing around 6, and in the nearly three hours they played not a single person wandered onto the dance floor. The band members are mostly older folks, and in scheduling the gig they requested that they finish by about 9 so no one would be driving home too late. Jack happily obliged, scheduling them to open for Brazos Stone.

When Brazos Stone arrives at a quarter to 9, Jack asks the swing band to cut if off, and one of the band members has a conniption.

She corners Jack and starts berating him. Caught completely off-guard, Jack takes off his hat and as politely as he can asks what she’s so upset about, but she won’t give him a clear answer. He tries to explain that the band’s scheduler — her husband — had asked that they finish by 9, and Jack was just following the plan.

“Did you want to play longer?” he asks. She isn’t listening. She’s got one hand on her hip and the other pointed at his face.

“Just tell me what you’re upset about,” Jack pleads.

The woman never does tell Jack what set her off, though it seems her feeling of indignation stemmed mostly from having to relinquish the stage to a bunch of young kids. In this woman’s eyes, Jack was one of them — a snot-nosed punk with no respect for his elders. After demanding and receiving payment for playing, the woman turned to Jack and said, “We’ll never play here ever again.”

“Yeah. You’re right,” said Jack. “You won’t.”

Jack’s vision for the cook-off has it expanding steadily and indefinitely. In the course of five years, he and Mack have seen it grow from 11 teams in 2003 to nearly 40. They calculate that the rodeo grounds can handle 55 teams, though they expect to outpace that number soon. They’ve got their eye on a piece of land to the south of Throckmorton as a possible replacement site.

Jack says he hopes the cook-off keeps growing and can make its name in the annals of great Texas festivals. The WCRMOF is currently left off Texas Travel’s exhaustive list of Texas cook-offs.

“I would like nothing better than to be out here some day eating ribs with Matthew McConaughey,” Jack says, and he’s hoping to get musician Pat Green to headline next year’s event.

It’s an ambitious vision, and one that’s decidedly cosmopolitan.

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