October summary from the Trafton Park Arena Committee

Just a quick summary of the Month of October from Trafton Park Arena Committee (insert Drum Roll Here). We had our Big Milk River Brew and Que with a Run, and helped out with the EMS fundraiser at Hi-Line Kitchen east of town and did a couple of free will meals for the EMS crew and the BBQ and Blue Ridge Brewery. In total we raised about $3500 for the Phillips County Ambulance Crew. Kudos to our community for all their donations. The number of helpers and donations were many and hugely appreciated! The meat was donated by Hi-Line Packing and was excellent! We had a great location, great food and lots of folks.

The Milk River Brew and Que with a Run was a grand success! There were a few hitches, but it was both entertaining and needed for our community! We will be doing it again next year, tentatively in August, a couple of weeks after the fair. Kind of a last hurrah for summer, and for rankings in the BBQ world - we are looking to have a sanctioned competition next year. Our turnout was kind of weak, but changed dates, weather and Covid were a pain, it goes to show what kind of community support our region supplies. We did go through about seven kegs of beer, great thanks to both Vizsla Brewery and Blue Ridge Brewery for making the trek. We were in The Milk River Pavilion and we would like to thank our County Commissioners for their help getting things heated, lit and generally being wonderful! Special thanks to Bruce for taking my calls and walking me through the control systems!!

Nick Holman won the overall, brisket, chicken, ribs and desert. Michelle Mackey won first in Sauce. And our own Hillybilly BBQ Savant, Derek Davis swept the Lamb contest.

My humble deserts did not cause major intestinal damage to anyone, long term, so happiness was abound!

We will be adding a few ‘extras’ categories next year, and ‘chicken’ will be changed to ‘poultry’ as the second and third place entries were excellent, but were actually ducks….

The Committee appreciates all of the sponsors, helpers and attendees of our events. We look forward to serving our community in the upcoming years!