The Urgent Reason Behind Poncho’s BBQ Cookoff in Malta, Montana

"Hello

I thank you again for having us, I was super nervous and went blank every question so I felt like I rambled a bit I forgot so much information that I wanted everyone to know.

Jory Dean Schipman was born June 13th, 1980 he took his own life May 26th 2023 (we were almost Irish twins being 13 months apart)

He lived and gained so many friends through his job with Mears Music traveling the hi-line setting up pool tournaments, dart tournaments, meeting so many people that just loved him everywhere he went he had great friends from the Kalispel area when he lived there, he had a band trial by Fire, he catered events, he had Schipman Sounds a DJ and Karaoke business, Burger Boys in Malta. He was always cooking something creating funny videos.  He was 1 of three in my family, he had 7 kids that he loved and adored. He was the Grand Knight for the Knights of Columbus #2124 and started his first cook-off August 2019, it was a yearly event. He stressed every year about his event, he basically planned with his wife. We have a huge crew planning this one and we have been stressed about it. It is definitely something that I would have never in a million years would have thought would happen last May. His funeral was one of the biggest funerals that has been held at the Catholic Church in Malta. He was comical and always made people laugh, helped with so many things. He was going through issues but he is a talker and told us he was graduated from counseling but within a week or so this happened, he left a message to us saying he couldn't fight his demons anymore, something no one understands including me, loved ones and friends.

 The name of the event came from his childhood nickname, The first meeting we had I messaged my brother Jessie with a bunch of different options and we decided Poncho's BBQ would be the best, my dad gave him that nickname when he was just little and dad made a wooden booster seat with the initial "P" in the middle of it, they still have it and all of my parents 16 grandchildren and 2 greatgrandchildren still use it. We would love to keep this memorial going and make it a family friendly event that everyone can look forward to attending and entering into the cook-off competition. We have a variety of vendors, cornhole tournament, watersides, bouncy house, snow cones, cotton candy, we will have a portion of front street blocked off. The community and surrounding communities have showed so much support with donations and donations to the silent auction with proceeds going to Phillips County Prevention a great asset to the hi-line, we want to help get them the funds they need to be able to help more people and hopefully prevent this from happening to anyone's loved one. We will have Memorial Luminaries that people can write messages or greetings to a lost one and light the bag up with a battery operated candle, we want to set those out around Veterans park during the event. We want to donate funds to any organization that has helped set up this event. We have a panel of Judges to judge this cookoff, entries can be Brisket, Pulled-pork, appetizers and desserts or all of the choices. winners gets 100% payout from the cook-off entries and an apron with the logo on it.

This event just makes my family and I happy that his memory will be carried on through this event since he loved to cook all kinds of things on his smoker. We are blessed and appreciate the great group of our family friends that approached us with this amazing idea that we began planning for in January!"

Contact numbers for event are:

Rhonda 406-390-7130

Susan 406-654-4051