Grill-off highlights beef fest

KAN staff report

About 8,000 beef lovers are expected to grill, sample and evaluate their favorite food at the third annual Kentucky’s Fort Harrod Beef Festival June 6-8 in Harrodsburg.

The Beef Grill-Off at the Mercer County Fairgrounds Saturday, June 7, is the festival’s signature event. Professional, amateur and youth grilling teams will compete to prepare the best briskets, steaks, and burgers. Spectators may purchase a $6 bracelet to sample the results and vote for their favorites. A burger and steak competition for youth also is scheduled.

The most popular event, the Saturday morning steak and egg breakfast at Old Fort Harrod State Park, also costs $6.

Other festival activities include a juried arts and crafts fair, a five-kilometer run-walk, an antique car show, line dancing, twilight tours of Fort Harrod, team roping, professional chefs, pageants for all ages, children’s activities and musical acts.

The festival celebrates a Kentucky beef cattle industry that is the largest east of the Mississippi River and eighth in the United States overall. Kentucky had 2.4 million beef cattle as of Jan. 1, according to the Kentucky field office of the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

The 2008 festival has grown from the two prior events. “We keep doing what we did before and adding more,” said Joan Huffman, a Kentucky Parks Department employee and festival organizer.

Harrodsburg native and Cincinnati businessman Ralph Anderson is a key festival sponsor. Anderson owns Anderson Circle Farm, an industry pacesetting Angus producer.

LeMayne Ellis, a Harrodsburg veterinarian and Mercer County Fair Board chairman, and Joan Huffman of the Kentucky Parks Department direct the festival. They are assisted by 20 year-round committee members and hundreds of volunteers.