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- How a Sister City Uses Salsa to Market Its Message of Friendship
by Dave DeWitt
Lake Havasu City, Arizona. For a few crazy reasons, I love this place. I've been coming back here every April for the past three years as El Patrón, or head judge of the Hava-Salsa Challenge, and I'm continually astounded by the extremes of this small city that is often listed as having the highest temperature in the U.S. -- I mean, it hits 100 degrees in April here. How appropriate for a salsa contest. The big attractions are the lake and the small bridge across part of it, which is called the London Bridge. It is the real London bridge, brought here in the 1970s from London, where it was sinking into the Thames. This audacious experiment was a gigantic success and launched what has become a very popular tourist and retirement city. What is the second most visited tourist attraction after the Grand Canyon in Arizona? Not Barry Goldwater's house, Old Town Scottsdale, or Sedona, but the London Bridge. Go figure.
Mary Jane and I sat in the shadow of the bridge under a hot sun and dined on fish and chips with a British ale and pondered its magnificence. It did not fall down. It was...an ordinary looking bridge, one that might look at home crossing the Chicahominy River in Virginia. But the tourists from motor homes were crawling all over the place, buying souvenirs and eating, well, fish and chips. The British always wanted a desert for their very own, and now they have one. Since I always love a good promotion, I was thinking, we'll move the Taj Majal to Albuquerque.
The following day was spent outdoors at the fourth annual Hava-Salsa Challenge, one of the more unique fiery events in the country. It's part county fair, part Fiery Foods Show, part chili cookoff. The premise is that community sponsors will compete for cash prizes by setting up booths and making salsa on the spot and compete in three categories, Individual, Commercial, and Restaurant. The contestants have colorful names for their salsas, such as: Speedy Gonsalsa, Sorry About Your Mouth Salsa, Nacho Mama's Salsa, Gus's Gut Bomb Salsa, and Marvin the Martian's Space Salsa--Burning Uranus. Those wacky Lake Havasuvians, they're not shy at all.
Additional booths were occupied by vendors selling hot sauces and other chile products, activities for children such as a train that carried them throughout the grounds (for a buck a ride), and numerous crafts and food and drink booths. One of the culinary highlights was an authentic deep-pit barbecue Mexican-Style, complete with pit on the beach at the lake, a large pile of oak, hundreds of pounds of pork, a front-end loader to move the cover, and a sauce that was tasty, but too mild. But that's why the salsa was there.
And it was very tasty. The judging, aided by a new computer program on a laptop, went smoothly despite the large number of entries and judges, and I thought that these salsas, although smaller in number, were comparable to finalists in the Austin Chronicle hot sauce contest, which I have judged for the past five years. It was more traditional than the Texas hot sauces, which tend to get pretty wild. However, there was salsa which I will not name that was so repulsive-looking ("pureed barf" said one judge, who looked pale), that it got the lowest score in the history of the Hava-Salsa Challenge because many judges refused to taste it. But on the whole, the salsas were great.
Before the awards ceremony, I had a chance to speak with one of the founding organizers of the event, Shirley Mac-Noye of the Citizen's Island Bridge Company, a nonprofit organization dedicated to developing the cultural aspects of Lake Havasu City. The Citizens Island Bridge Company was formed after a Federal Court ruled against the developer of Lake Havasu City. The settlement provided the funds for the nonprofit company, which listed as one of its goals the development of a bridge complex/multicultural park featuring Southwestern, eco-heritage tourism. Phase One, a Creative Cultural Center will be opened soon.
Shirley told me that the Citizens Island Bridge Company needed an event to symbolize what the multicultural park is all about, something that involved the family, entertainment, a sharing of cultural values, the Southwestern heritage--something involving food. Fortunately, she hooked up with Jay Lewis, who was running the Sister Cities program, and they came up with the idea for a salsa challenge that would be cosponsored by the two organizations. Also fortunate was the fact that Mohave Community College teamed up with them to provide dozens of volunteers to help run the Challenge.
It took the team a year to organize the first Challenge and I asked her how she convinced the rest of the community to help out. She said that she and Jay had great contacts in the community, and that they didn't have to twist any arms. Budweiser supported the event immediately and soon other community leaders got on board. The Challenge has grown in size over the years and attendance is several thousand people who pay for the privilege to taste all the salsas.
Shirley has a plan for the future that would involve similar Challenges in other cities that culminates in a national championship. Hopefully, all competing cities would have Sister Cities in Mexico that would also participate, as does Ciudad Guzman, Lake Havasu City's sister city in Jalisco. She envisions a salsa society that would sanction all events in the participating cities. But right now, she's basking in the success of the event and is pleased that there will be more prize money to award next year, and that the Arizona State Parks has agreed to greatly expand the parking lot, which will increase attendance.
At the awards ceremony, everyone crowded the stage while I announced the winners and Jay, Shirley, and her assistant Pat passed out the trophies, ribbons, and prize money. That Sorry About Your Mouth Salsa, by Margaritaville, one of my favorite restaurants in Lake Havasu City, won first place for Restaurant Salsa--Hot. There was a tie for Commercial--Hot between Marvin the Martian's Space Salsa...Burning Uranus (from Bryan Bagshaw) and Spine Tinglin' Salsa (from Lakeside Orthopedic Surgery), however, Spine Tinglin' won the People's Choice. Receiving the top score as Best of Show--Grand Champion by the judges, was Juanito's Salsa Mexicano, by El Dorado Ranch.
Other cities and towns across the country should explore the possibility of a Salsa Challenge to raise community awareness. Contact Shirley Mac-Noye at (520) 680-0221.
