Friona Cheeseburger Festival draws thousands of hungry fans

One thousand pounds of beef, 500 pounds of cheese, 2,500 buns and an estimated 2,700 people -- these are all big numbers, but cheeseburgers in Friona are serious business -- especially during the Friona Cheeseburger Festival.

Nine teams turned out to turn burgers in the 100-plus degree heat on Saturday. Each contestant sent a burger to the four judges from Austin, then focused on preparing burgers for the festival. Those in attendance could buy an armband with four tabs on it for $7, and then use each tab to get a quarter of a third-pound burger.

Meat was donated by Cargill and cheese was supplied by Southwest Cheese and Hilmar Cheese. Contestants only had to bring anything they planned to mix into the cheeseburgers.

"Friona is centrally located between the beef and the wheat and the cheese production. So when we were thinking about things that brought notoriety to Friona, we figured it was only logical that we create a cheeseburger festival," City Manager Lee Davila said while the judges were tallying up their favorite burgers. This is the 13th festival -- it began in 2006, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry proclaimed Friona as the Cheeseburger Capital of Texas in 2007.

The event averages between 2,300 to 2,500 people in attendance each year. Davila said this year, the town has made a special push to let even more people know about the event, buying ads on radio stations and sending press releases to the media.

"For a community that's 4,123, that is a huge boost to our economy," Davila said. "We're hoping that the word will really spread, and those 2,300 and 2,500 people that used to come are now doubling, and we get twice the size of our population here."

At the end of the day, Chris Alexander, director of the Friona Chamber of Commerce, said the festival broke attendance records.

"Probably about 2,700. But I had several people say they thought the crowd was larger," she said.

Albert Benavidez, of Clovis, brought his family 35 miles northeast to Friona for the festival. He said the people at the festival were really nice.

"I pass through all the time. We saw it last year, and we didn't make it out," Benavidez said. This year, they made it a point to come.

"We tried Southwest Cheese's (cheeseburger) with green chile on it. That was great," he said. "We tried that, where it says 50 over there? They added a little chile to theirs, and that was great. All out, pretty good."

Mike Suda, one of four judges from Austin, said it's important to bring together the community. Using local products showcases the community, he said.

"You can tell that the people that participated took a lot of pride in what they were doing, because every burger was good," Suda said. "There's a good sense of community."

The judges named cheeseburgers from the Friona Independent School District coaches as the first place creation, while Rhodes Romper Que won second.

Seth Woolsey, the general manager of Whiteface Ford in Hereford, said the business has been competing for a few years. They don't come to win, he said, but to support the community of Friona and the agriculture industry that surrounds it. In the past, they never did win any awards.

But Saturday afternoon, Whiteface Ford was named the People's Choice Award winner anyway.

The Friona Banking Center has won that award in the past, and even won first place one year. Saturday it was not meant to be for their spicy cheeseburger, but they had a good time anyway.

"We're the only local team that's done it every year," Ab Hendley, the senior vice president of the bank and also senior burger flipper, said. "We've had fun."

The bankers' burgers, like many of the others, was spicier than a fast-food chain burger. Many of the cheeseburgers in Friona included green chile. The Friona Banking Center's concoction included jalapenos, onions, brown sugar and mozzarella, as well as a few items they kept secret.

"I like a spicy burger, so I kind of cook them a little spicier. When my grandkids are here, we just make a plain old cheeseburger," Hendley said.

In the end, he said, it's not about winning, but about supporting the ag industry that supports the town, and about raising money for a few fundraisers for kids.

The money raised by burger sales and a dunking booth will be used to buy a pitching machine for Kids Inc. and to help put a flag pole at the baseball field.