Lacombe Despite the sizzling heat, hundreds of crab and seafood connoisseurs flocked to John Davis Park in Lacombe for the annual Lacombe Crab Fest.

The festival, known for its food and fun is also a great fundraiser for local non-profits and charities. All the money raised by the sales of food and drink goes to charitable organizations.

There was something for everyone at this year’s festival. For music lovers that was all sorts of live music from sophisticated jazz to rock and roll. There was a midway with rides and games of chance. Inside the Lacombe Community Center, local artists and craftsmen hawked their creations, not to mention that looking at the art in air-conditioned comfort was a respite from the hot temperatures outside.

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But the hot weather did not stop people from dancing, eating, drinking and having a good time.

Of course, eating at the Lacombe Crab Fest is the biggest attraction. Besides boiled crabs, crab fingers, and soft shell crab poboys, there was also chicken on a stick, barbecue, funnel cakes, cotton candy, red beans and rice and other samples of delectable foods.

The highlight was the annual gumbo cookoff. A panel of four celebrity judges did the judging this year, including the Crab Fest King and Queen, Sal Impastato and Lucinda Roberts. The judges had the enviable task of eating six different gumbos and judging which would win first second and third prizes.

The 2009 winner was Helen Doucette, who along with her daughter Renee, and friend Cynthia Cryer conjured up the best gumbo of the festival. Doucette, a Lacombe native, used to own a restaurant, and ironically she is allergic to seafood.

“I can’t eat seafood, but I sure can cook it,” Doucette said with a big smile.

Of course, what would a Crab Fest be without crab races? Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 8290 gathered the best “thoroughbred” crabs they could find and had spectators place bets on the crabs that had numbers painted on them. All the money raised will go to the construction of a new VFW 8290 building. The crabs were gathered on one end of a long trough of water. At the signal, the crab master would lift a gate, and crabs would go scuttling down the trough to the finish line.

Alas the winners were not destined for greater glory, or to be put out to pasture. The crab master said at the end of the festival, the racing crabs would end up in a pot of boiling water.