Police vs. firefighters for a fellow first responder
Butler firefighters and police officers shoved their faces into plates of meatballs to help a fellow first responder Saturday night.
The two departments were vying in a friendly competition in which the winner would get a $500 donation from the Butler Italian Festival.
In the end, the Butler police won the chow down, with officer Myles Bizub finishing his plate of 10 meatballs surprisingly swiftly.
Michael Dongilli, event spokesman for the Italian festival, said he thinks the $500 winnings of the department and the $100 awarded to Bizub would be given to Michael Sulerud, an officer who was stabbed last week while responding to an incident in Butler.
Still, the competition was fierce, and the finalists had to eat 10 meatballs within two minutes.
“(Bizub) finished them off in, like, 30 seconds,” Dongilli said. “The guys in the end who got to the championship finished off them all.”The meatball-eating contest was one of the most popular events of the weekend Italian festival, Dongilli said. Each department picked a few eaters to participate in a preliminary round, with five meatballs each and 90 seconds. Each department's winner faced off in the final round of 10 meatballs and two minutes.The popularity of the eating competition may be back at future Italian festivals, according to Dongilli.“I think it's going to become a tradition between the departments,” Dongilli said. “'Who is the biggest meatball?'”Following the meatball-eating contest was a performance by Let's Groove Tonight, an Earth, Wind & Fire tribute band, which Dongilli said was also widely attended.Overall, Dongilli said he thought the festival went well, considering that it was returning after a two-year gap.“At our height in 2019, we probably had a little bigger crowd,” Dongilli said. “But for a bounce-back year, it was fantastic.”
