Jim Quessenberry - The Legend

For years Jim Quessenberry was a master of culinary arts. Starting out as a manager of a cafeteria in Memphis, TN and working with food his whole life, Jim began to venture into the Barbeque World. He had been around it his whole life living up to stories his mother told him as a little boy growing up in the once bustling Black Angus Cattle Farming town of Birdeye, AR. During harvest time and other festive times throughout the year, Anne Smith Quessenberry, Jim's mother and our grandmother, stood alongside her father, William Maurice Smith, SR., while he had the farm hands dig a pit in the ground where the entire town of Birdeye would roast a pig and celebrate another good harvest of cotton and cattle. This began to be a family tradition and was passed down through the generations. Jim made his love for food synonymous with his love for celebrations and took this tradition to a whole new level. He and several of his closest friends and relatives bagan to cook in barbeque contests all over the country.

Their first team name was the "Pigtails". After a few years Jim was making quite a stir in competition barbeque cooking and was eventually known as "The Arkansas Trav'ler." Shortly after Jim was becoming prominent in competition, he was invited to compete in The International Cooking Competition in Lisdoonvarna, Ireland. Jim won overall in all categories and brought home the Irish Cup in 1985. This was quite remarkable in the fact that Jim had also been competing in another World Championship Contest circuit which many people are familiar with today known as Memphis In May. Jim returned to Ireland to become a two time winner of the coveted Irish Cup in 1987, followed by many other contest wins all over the globe including a 2nd place whole hog in Memphis In May, Overall wins in Cleveland, Dallas, Daytona, Kansas City, and Little Rock, and several prize and place wins in Nashville, Magnolia, AR, and Oklahoma City.