The godfather of Geezerplex BBQ unmasks his food's political power

By HUDSON OLD
Journal Publisher

A $1,000 check presented by the name-sake founder of Jesse May's Smoky Eyed BBQ draws a smile from two-time champion Ernie Paul Pewitt. Unfettered by conventional thought, mysterious in his own up-front ways, the stories about Mr. Pewitt border on legends he leaves shrouded with a misty veil of romance.

Controversy has arisen concerning footwear, or the alleged lack thereof, preferred by two-time Jesse May Smoky-Eyed BBQ Champion Ernie Paul Pewitt.

"Ernie routinely came barefoot to work, size 13's slapping down the hall all the way to his office at El Centro College," claims retired professor Robert Hamm.

That's a blatant exaggeration, counters the reigning king of the oldest running barbecue competition in the Geezerplex. Living in Oak Cliff while working at the school campus across a significant slice of metroplex, riding to work on a bicycle, some days Ernie Paul encountered rain.

"I only pulled off my shoes if my feet were wet," he said. "I was raised right. You don't track the floor."

Yet circumstantial evidence indicates he indeed lived a Bohemian lifestyle during the era of its popular rise with the 60's counter culture, thus begging the question: if he was barefoot in academia back then, was he a hippie or just real rural?

A hint: "I promised Myra when she said she'd marry me I'd get rid of all the chickens in the house," Mr. Pewitt said, but then there's his flower power link. Even after earning his degree at East Texas State, Mr. Pewitt continued working as a landscaper, the business that caused enough income to get him through school.

That Pewitt name rings a local bell - there's the Paul Pewitt Independent School District in Morris County. Statewide, the Paul Pewitt Brahmas, in recent years, have been regaled by media as a powerhouse in triple-A football.

The school took its name after drillers struck oil on the Pewitt Ranch, pumping sacks of tax money into the school district, and whether or not there's a connection between the school mascot - the Brahman - and the Pewitts, there should be.

The Pewitt Ranch put Brahman cattle in Sulphur River bottom, those early strains of pure grey hump-shouldered cattle that leaned toward being wild as banshees, salty. Sort of like the football team that's the only 3-A State Champ in the history of Texas to be named for a cow.

As reflected in the wise eyes of Ashlyn Eubanks, a proper young lady should want no more watermelon than she can eat.

The branch of the Pewitt family identified with the school didn't come to town much, says Ernie Paul, who was kin to them, that's all. They were people quiet to the point of having a touch of mystery, a little clannish, people who kept mostly to themselves.

Unlike the barbecue champ.

"Everybody loves to see Ernie Paul show up," said Jesse May, namesake of the Jesse May Smoky-Eyed Barbecue. "He gets to laughing and you can hear him clear across the fair grounds. It just sounds right."

Incidentally, while creating rollick and laughter for nine years, Jesse's barbecue has raised just a bit less than $100,000 for Cypress Basin Hospice, which serves 13 East Texas Counties.

BBQ's Political

Armadillo Connection

Or

Greetings from Austin

Jesse May serves, and causes to be served, lots of barbecue, mostly for anybody who wants it, but his cooking career was rooted in the seldom-considered arena of barbecue's political influence.

A retired game warden, Mr. May once routinely cooked for the Texas game warden association's bi-annual meeting that uses a wild-game feed as bait to lure legislators.

"That's lots of fun," Jesse said. "The wardens down on the coast bring shrimp and oysters. The boys from West Texas might bring quail, dove, mule deer, antelope - we'd bring squirrel, deer and catfish from East Texas and cook up a feast." In advance of the feast, the association's executive director briefed wardens concerning legislative issues so that elected officials could be knowledgeably engaged about what was up in Austin, where there's always more up than we hear about.

(Right now, for example, there's a proposed increase in the civil penalty for killing an armadillo, raising the fine from $8 to $13.50.)

It was in the century passed, from September of '62 until September of '93 that Jesse May was among the state's men in East Texas responsible for the enforcement of all laws and regulations regarding armadillos as well as all other Texas game animals.

All state in basketball back at Jim Bowie High - that's in Bowie County - and honorable mention all state in football to boot, Jesse was a student at Texarkana Junior College when he started running with a buddy who worked for Texas Parks and Wildlife. They ran census lines, making game counts in wild river bottoms.

The work suited Jesse and he applied for a job, but got turned down.

"They said I asked too much about vacation time," he said.

Presidential Intervention

But little could TP & W brass have known about Jesse's connection with Hale Parker, president of the college board, a friend of Sen. Howard Carney, who sat on the TP&W board, Jesse said.

Enter into the picture, a "Big Feed," as Jesse calls such events, back in Bowie County. On Mudd Creek.

Hearing Jesse's story, the pres offered an invitation.

"Come on out to Mudd Creek tonight, son," invited the pres. "I'll introduce you around." By evening's end, between bites of barbecue, the president's friend the senator had suggested that Jesse apply again.

"I didn't even make it back down to their office," Jesse said. "They called me the next day."

Fresh out of game warden school, Jesse was assigned to Hemphill County, down where the Sabine defined the border of Louisiana and Texas, before Toledo Bend lake was built. It was wild country, the kind of country known best by backwood loggers.

"I ran across people like I'd never run across before," Jesse said, citing a preference for Vanilla Extract among a significant portion of the hard-drinking segment of locals.

Crossed Wires in Law Enforcement

One night Jesse got into a chase with some game violators, his common sense alarms and training bells ringing when the fleeing culprits began throwing guns out the window.

"I got those guns and the Texas Ranger helped me track them," Jesse said. "We solved nine burglaries." Jesse says the local Peace Justice told him to hold the arms until the grand jury met - meanwhile, a local officer demanded that Jesse hand over the guns to his office.

"When I wouldn't hand them over, he tried to get a warrant on me as an accessory in the burglaries," Jesse said.

Shortly, Jesse was shipped out, stationed one county over.

"One night I got a call to go back over in Sabine County on a deal involving night hunters," Jesse said. He arrived to find himself in what appeared to be a large operation.

"There were 18 wardens there," he said, and they went out stealthily, hunting spotlighters.

"The first one we got," he grinned, "was that officer who wanted to file charges on me."

A year after joining Parks and Wildlife, he came to Titus County in the spring of '64.

In the early 90's, visiting his Titus County native-born daughter after she'd married a Pilgrim's Pride man and moved to Nacogdoches, Jesse went to that town's Do-Dat Barbecue, where an idea hatched.

"It was an idea about a way to give something back to a town that's been good to me and mine," said Jesse. Given the way he hired on with Parks and Wildlife, and the way he understood the importance of launching ideas with the local stroke of movers and shakers, "I went to see Joe Sandlin, Junior," he said. The BBQ had its first director, and as far as all that legal non profit whatever incorporation stuff, that end was handled. Drawing contestants and a crowd was left largely up to Jesse. They set the third weekend of June as the annual date.

"The first year was 1995 and we had 12 pits and we sold enough all-you-can-eat until it's gone admission tickets to finish up a little in the black," Jesse says, if you're a history buff.

"We could have given hospice more money that year, but we invested in the future," Jesse said. The new charity BBQ outfit wrote the Titus County Fair outfit a check to help fund construction of public bathrooms for the livestock pavilion.

"If you've got a crowd, a public restroom's handy," said Jesse, who once demonstrated similar common sense from a seat on the local school board.

The livestock pavilion BBQ headquarters, back behind the Titus County Civic Center, this year drew 54 pits and generated receipts after expenses of better than $22,000, if you're an accounting buff keeping score of home-grown charity benefits.

Taking charge of their bean entry, Z-Bro's BBQ Team member's rookie red shirt Leah is the sister of team captain Zeke Zwernemann, formerly of the Kansas City Chiefs, more recently General Manager of Top Hat trailers. Working in the off season, Union Hill Coach Joe Campbell prepares a vegetable-laden 'BBQ mop,' one of the secrets of his father-and-son O Taste & C BBQ team. With pick up teams moments away from the ceremonial exchange of entries from costestants to judges, At Whitt's End Team Co-Captain Keith Whittebort carves his six best slices. The Pittsburg team took second in the chicken division

BBQ's Meteorological Considerations

During a post-event briefing, a weather question gave pause to the man who's come to be the regional Godfather of Competition Barbecue. Recognized as the local authority, Jesse provided insider tips, helping former Kansas City Chief Zeke Zwernemann organize the first annual Valentine's Day Titus County Special Olympics BBQ. It snowed.

The 2004 Jesse May event goes down as the first to be ushered in with a typhoon, accompanied by an electrical storm and driving rain that sent some packing for shelter of the pavilion.

Others, like many Texans who find themselves intrigued with extremes in weather, sneered leather-faced grins at the sky, watching from beneath the brims of cowboy hats and gimmie caps, attire universally recognized with the BBQ chef set.

At length, Jesse ventured an opinion as to whether the storm of ought four or the blazing drought that was the backdrop of a late 90's event provided the more interesting weather phenomenon. At the close of the cookoff that year, sparks and embers blowing from pits being trailered home ignited grass fires along I-30, U.S. 271, and along Washington Street, the route back to headquarters for the fire department team.

As the retired lawman points out, conclusive investigation has never linked those suspicious fires to anybody.

Don't Tell Jesse What to Do With His BBQ

There are "sanctioned" barbecues, a competition circuit with a Texas championship cookoff and all - and there's not sanctioned deals. Jesse's is not.

"Those sanctioned deals," he said, like the one in Winfield, a week after his, "they've got all kinds of rules about how they can sell the food and who gets to go out to the pits. I just like to see everybody get in, visit with the cooks, eat all they can until it's gone."

This year, that amounted to 50 pounds of meat prepared by each of the 54 teams. That's a bunch. Do the math.

A Barbecue Legend

Hunt County wasn't new to Ernie Paul Pewitt when he moved there to go to school. No quicker than he could make an old jalopy run, he traveled there hunting the author of the books he read - Horse Trading, Wild Cow Tales, The Village Horse Doctor, Some More Horse Trading - all titles penned by Ben K. "Doc" Green, who lived in a field near Cumby.

"When I was in high school, I'd sneak off to go see him," Ernie Paul said. "He had all kinds of animals." Later, Ernie Paul "lived around" Commerce while going to school, eventually taking room and board with his friend the writer. Doc Green had a phone at his office in Greenville. He didn't have one at home.

"There was a water hydrant out in his yard, but we didn't have water in the house," Ernie Paul said.

Or electricity. He was extravagant in other ways.

"We kept pigeons and ate squab," Ernie Paul said. "He had peaches and a berry patch, no lights and not many bills."

Probably already bent that way, Ernie Paul learned that a man who doesn't need much - well, he doesn't need much.

For 20 years, Ernie Paul was in and out of Hunt County. He worked some in Commerce in a butcher's shop.

"The market manager told me once, anybody who can cook a good brisket can cook anything," Ernie Paul remembers. So he did.

After graduation, he kept working in his landscape business, routinely commuting between a mobile home without lights, phone or running water, to the fabulous Metroplex neighborhoods where he worked. One good way to save money - don't spend much.

"I probably had twenty room mates over the years, in and out," he said. "Those who could shared expenses." One was Wayne Meredith, for whom the Pewitts named their first daughter. A nationally-acclaimed high school journalist, Meredith is a journalism student at Texas Tech.

When Doc Green's health began failing, Ernie Paul went back to live with him.

When Myra Runge, his old college flame, said she'd marry him, Ernie Paul was head over heels in love.

"I like people that are willing to take a risk," he said.

Except for moving to Allen - before the metroplex swallowed it - with the exception of raising his children with the advantages of lights and running water, Ernie Paul hasn't changed much.

His daily-driver Volkswagen has better than 400,000 miles; the family Suburban he pulls his pit with, a mere 250,000.

He sells propane.

"I drive around and find construction sites, go in the office and pat my belly, ask if they need some gas," he said. "If they laugh, I sell them some. If they don't, I go ride some more."

Cook barbecue slow, he advises, leaving the rest of his story somewhere between what lines are here. Last year he won Pittsburg's ChickFest BBQ, too.

Like you'd guess, as chairman of the chamber committee organizing that cookoff, Pilgrim Bank VP Charlotte Harte got some insights from Jesse May.

Jesse added one more detail about Ernie Paul.

"One year," he says, adding that he can't remember exactly what year, "a week after we had our cookoff, Ernie Paul called needing help cooking 2,500 pounds of brisket for some country club. Big catering job. We rounded up all the willing cooks we needed."