BLACKFOOT — Russell and Janice Smella of SmellaQue were named grand champions at Saturday’s Smoke-N-Wings BBQ competition held at Blackfoot Airport.

The win marks their second consecutive year taking top honors in the Smoke-N-Wings competition.

Thirty-one teams began grilling and smoking chicken, pork, ribs and brisket on Friday, June 26. Forty certified judges began judging each team in the four categories of meat.

“Each team has to grill or smoke four types of meats,” said Steve McClellan, event organizer.

Along with winning champion overall, team SmellaQue, took second place in ribs, fourth place in brisket, seventh place in pork and eighth place in chicken.

The Smellas have been competing in barbecue competitions since 2014, winning many competitions over the past 12 years. They entered their first competition in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

“We went to Texas and ate ourselves silly on barbecue. We bought a smoker that we didn’t know how to use,” Janice said. “At that time, ‘Pit Master’ was on television. The videos we watched for our specific smoker, everybody was on a competition circuit. We have a hometown barbecue competition, so my husband said, ‘If we enter the contest, we will learn how to use the smoker.’ It’s a bit of a leap, but that’s exactly what happened.”

Team SmellaQue are five-time Canadian National BBQ competition champions.

In September, they will head to the American Royal World Series of Barbecue held in Kansas City, Kansas. They are also eligible for a chance to be invited to the Jack Daniel’s World Championship Invitational Barbecue.

“For us to come here, we just come to have fun,” Janice said. “We have known Steve and Stacy for quite a few years. When they started advertising for this, they were such friendly and nice people, I said we have to go cook at that contest just because of the people.

For the past three years, the Smoke-N-Wings competition has been sanctioned by the Kansas City Barbecue Society. The competition is open to grillers across the United States and Canada.

“There are a lot of high-powered teams from all over the U.S. and Canada,” McClellan said.

Along with the competition, Smoke-N-Wings also held a silent auction, Grillin for Grads, to benefit the Bingham County Mayoral Scholarship fund. Every year, the mayors from Aberdeen, Snake River, Fort Hall, Firth and Shelly choose high school graduates to award scholarships to. Last year, the fundraiser raised $9,000 for the scholarship fund.