Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 26, 1991 TAG: 9102260062
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Nearly half a million people were milling around Laredo, Texas, during the week. Maybe half of a half of a million. It's hard to count people when they don't stand still.
But the frenzied masses had all week to limber up during the nine-day Washington's Birthday Celebration, and by Saturday night they were ready to watch some people get ill.
Near the terminal at the Laredo International Airport, tens of thousands of people - no joke - paid to see the Jalapeno Festival. Johnny Espinoza stepped up to the line and into the void and snatched from us what could rightly be called ours.
He ate 73 jalapeno peppers in 15 minutes and he won the hot-pepper eating contest going away. Espinoza, the defending champion, wasn't seriously challenged by any of the 24 pretenders to his throne. He won $500.
One man had come from Tennessee; another from California. There were purported pepper poppers from Mexico.
But there was no Robert Hager.
Hager, for those of you who have been living in caves since 1984, is Roanoke's finest living pepper eater. By weekday, he works for the city, tending plant life.
By weekend and by night, Hager chows down on heat. The real stuff.
For the past six years, Hager has kicked some vanilla-flavored butt in the pepper-eating competition that each May accompanies the Virginia Chili Cook-Off in Roanoke.
Last year there was some dispute about Hager's triumph. Sources say that an alley denizen stepped up last year and in five minutes ate 32 peppers; Hager chomped 31. Hager appealed, charging that the derelict hadn't eaten entire peppers. His appeal was denied. The champ, though, subsequently became deceased and Hager ascended once again to the top ranking.
Hager was ready to tangle with the fabled Espinoza. After all, each year we send Virginia's best chili chef to Los Angeles to represent us in the nationals. Why not send our best hot-pepper eater to Laredo?
We could have left our mark in Texas, and it isn't often that a city our size gets to occupy a spot in history on another planet.
We opened the Hager Hombre Hot Stuff Fund, a hot line to raise money to send Hager to Laredo to wrest the big enchilada from Johnny Espinoza.
The hot line raised fewer than 10 dollars.
Espinoza was spared; Hager denied; and Roanoke languished in obscurity.
But Johnny Espinoza, mark these words right now. You ate 73 peppers in 15 minutes. Robert Hager eats 31 in five. The math doesn't work there, Johnny. Not for you.
"I'd love to go down there and knock him off," Hager said. "I think I might be able to do it, too."
I am dedicating myself to this task: Roanoke will have a pepper eater in Laredo next year.
The heat is on.
by CNB