You’ll find the likes of “Holy Smokes” and “Adam’s Ribs” competing as “ribbers” in the first-ever Williston “Ribfest” today as eight teams seek to be the best in tantalizing your taste buds with their marvelous barbecued meat.

The fun began early this morning when the teams received their meat from the contest committee. The final products are to be judged at 3:45 p.m. on the south end of Main Street, with the winning team receiving two round-trip airline tickets to Denver. The public also has the opportunity to select a people’s favorite, with the winning team receiving $100 in Chamber Bucks.

Contest committee member Cathy Kruse said the idea for the contest this year is to simply provide another fun activity for the annual city July 4 list of events.

“First off, we’ve done a lot of research,” she said. “We have attended Ribfest in Kenmare and talked to ribbers there. We just talked to anyone we could who has been involved in a Ribfest.”

The committee then decided the best way to get competitors for the first year is to get sponsors through the Williston Area Chamber of Commerce, with no entry fees for the teams. A total of 19 businesses provided funding and supplies for today’s competition which provides product for the public to eat starting at 4 p.m. The finished ribs are $1 each, while coleslaw, beans, bread, pop and water is being served by the Upper Missouri Ministries. The local committee wasn’t going to serve any side dishes for the public until it talked to the folks involved in the Kenmare competition, Kruse said. The committee also originally thought of having the competition finish at noon.

“But the ribbers we talked to said it wasn’t enough time to get the ribs, prepare the ribs, season the ribs, cook them and smoke them and get it done by noon,” Kruse said.

The ribbers use their own seasoning and cooking processes following the necessary food safety preparation guidelines, she added.

“We’re very excited about it. We’re hoping this is something that can be an annual event,” Kruse said.

The contest committee hopes to learn a lot from how this first year goes, including whether or not this is the right weekend for such an event.

“If it can get bigger because it could be a different weekend, we may switch to that too,” she added.

“Holy Smokes” is the name for the team from Williston’s First Baptist Church, while the “Adam’s Ribs” are from Williston’s Liberty Evangelical Free Church.

The remaining teams competing today include FMC Technologies, Dr. Ron Wright, Horizon Resources, Sanjel, Hughes Construction and Hugh Long/Kelly Heller.

The chamber also is cooking ribs to serve to the public.