There was plenty of food to go around at the State Fair on Friday as the fair and Cloverdale Meats sponsored a hot dog eating contest at the Dakota Talent Stage.
Eaters competed in four categories: celebrity, adult male, youth male and youth female. Competitors in each category had three minutes to eat as many hot dogs as they could; buns and all. If five minutes were up and contestants were in the middle of finishing a hot dog, they had one minute to finish chewing it for it to count toward their total. All of the winners, except the victor of the celebrity category, won a $50 check courtesy of the State Fair and a Cloverdale prize pack.
The first race was the celebrity category. Competing was Minot State football coach Paul Rudolph, Sunny 101.9 DJ Andrew Kirchner, Minot Fire Marshal Ken Sisk, and KXMC anchor Perry Olsen. The contestants started slow and took their time to consume all of the hot dogs at their disposal. Minot State Coach Paul Rudolph and Sunny 101.9's Andrew Kirchner ended up tied for first as they both devoured five hot dogs a piece. Kirchner and Rudolph donated the $100 they won to the humane society.
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Austin Erickson/MDN
Cordell Volsen, right, shovels in one of the nine hot dogs that led him to a victory in the youth male category of the Cloverdale Hot Dog Eating Contest at the State Fair on Friday.
The most entertaining race of the day was the youth male category as Cordell Volsen took home the gold by eating nine hot dogs. Volsen ate more weiners than anyone else at the contest. His strategy was to slosh the dogs into his water cup to make them mushy and easier to eat. Volsen looked like a natural as there wasn't a point in the race where he didn't have a hot dog in his hands or in his mouth. After the victory, Volsen bent over and gasped for air as he basked in the glory of his win.
State Fair Intern Brittany Anderson ran the event and thought that it was quite successful. "This event was done in 2010 for the first time and not many people showed up. We wanted to put [the contest] on again to see if more people would come out. This year was a success. I think we're going to try and do something similar in the future."