This year’s Chili Cook-Off at The Chapman Family Homecoming Celebration (October 4-6, 2013) was a huge success, thanks in large part to the creativity and hard work of event chairperson Margaret Moodian ’03, who serves on the Chapman University Alumni Association Board of Directors.

We asked Margaret and Andi Doddridge, event and program coordinator, to give us a recap of the event:

“The chili cook-off was a lot of fun this year! There were more than 780 pre-registered guests and more than 500 pre-registered for the Viewing Party in the Piazza. The total attendance well exceeded 1,000 people. President Doti showed his support by judging the competition. Fifteen teams from around campus and the community participated. These teams included Barrister’s Beans, Chapman Ambassadors, Stew and Brew with Doc. Bay, Kappa Alpha Theta, The MBA’s (Master Bean Aficionado), NSSHLA (Wilkinson), Disciples on Campus (DOC), Phi Sigma Sigma Sorority, Parents Ambassador Council – Fire in the Hole, Food Science and Nutrition Student Association, Runnin’ Rebels, Hot Chapman Chili Chicks, The Big Foodies, Delta Gamma’s “Darn Good Chili,” and Delta Tau Delta. Four teams ran out of chili before 6:00 p.m., and all remaining teams had little, if anything, left to serve after 6:30 p.m. when the event officially ended. More than 15,000 oz. of chili were consumed in approximately 7,500 sampling cups.

The grand champions (The Runnin’ Rebels) are a team composed solely of Chapman alumni–many of them from the 1980s and 1990s, which is an exciting footnote to the competition. It’s great that an ALL alumni team won the competition outright, although the point tallies were very close between second and third place in both the Grand Champion and the People’s Choice. The Rebels have temporarily retained the grand champion trophy and are giving it a Stanley Cup tour–each of its team members is taking the trophy for a day and will be taking photos with the trophy for our alumni website and newsletter. This will be a fun way to build enthusiasm for the chili cook-off for next year.”

Thank you to everyone who joined us at The Chapman Family Homecoming Celebration!  We hope to see you at more Chapman events in the future!

Check out the complete gallery of photos from The Chapman Family Homecoming Celebration »