NEWBERRY — The Second Annual City of Newberry Gingerbread Competition brought out the creativity as five contestants in the adult contest and six in the youth went all out.
“Last year a lot of folks did gingerbread houses, most outlandish was the gingerbread cuckoo clock, but still in the traditional form of a house. We told our competitors last year, ‘these are great, we love them, but we don’t want you to feel limited to just making a gingerbread house,” said Mary Alex Kopp, tourism and events manager with the City of Newberry.
Kopp added that they encouraged the competitors to make whatever gingerbread “thing” they wanted. She even pointed out that the rules state this is not a gingerbread house competition, it is a gingerbread competition.
“Folks really delivered, we got a peacock, the carnival scene, the barn, two houses and a Christmas tree. We are really pleased with how that turned out,” Kopp said.
During last year’s competition there were only two entries in the Kids Village section. This year, that number tripled. Initially, there were to be eight entries for the Newberry Village (the adult side), but three backed out at the last minute due to family issues.
“The ages are all over the map (for the youth contest) we have some 12 year olds, eight year olds, six year olds, some working in teams, some working as individuals, really excited about all that,” Kopp said. “Definitely a good year all around.”
This year also saw competitors from around the Midlands and Upstate, Kopp said the competitors were from Newberry, Pomaria, Lexington, Chapin and Union.
“We just put it out on the internet that we have this gingerbread contest, anyone and everyone is allowed to join. We just limited it to a certain number of contestants and went from there,” she said. “At its core, this is a community competition, the majority of our competitors are local, all of our children are local. We are excited to have folks coming into town as a result of doing this competition, we are also excited to have a lot of ours really showing what Newberrians are capable of.”
Kopp also pointed out that everyone who entered in the competition had a connection to Newberry in some way.
Now on to the winners, in the Kids Village the Best in Show winner was “The Silly Shack” made by Ethan Allison (13), Caleb Allison (9) and Micah Allison (7), of Chapin. The team was the recipient of a $50 Newberry Arts Center gift certificate.
This year, the judges also included an honorable mention of “Christmas at the Farm” created by Everett Setzler (8).
Over to the Newberry Village, the second runner up, and the recipient of a $200 cash prize, was Mary Stallings, of Union, with “The Gingerbread Barn.” The first runner up, and the recipient of a $300 cash prize, was Eric Moore, of Pomaria, with “Blue Christmas.”
The Newberry Best in Show winner, and recipient of a $500 cash prize, went to Cynthia Sprott, Sarah Sprott, Carly Sprott and Matt Dearden of team The Candy Cane Crew with their entry “Classic Christmas.”
