Register defeats NPR's No Pie Refused in sequel RAGBRAI pie-eating contest

CASTALIA, Ia. — The battle was met shortly after noon Friday here in the friendliest of RAGBRAI towns, within sight of the Zion Lutheran Church bell tower that first rose above the prairie in 1906.

The opposing armies, seven soldiers apiece, faced each other from across a folding table set up beneath a big tent. Their weapons of choice were laid out in front of them: homemade apple pie from the kitchen of Linda Mundt and her fellow Lutherans.

Thus it was that that the second pie-eating contest between, on one side, a team of Des Moines Register journalists and Just Go Bike podcasters, and on the other, the journalists of National Public Radio biking beneath the banner of “No Pie Refused,” raised the stakes on this epic, flaky-crusted feud.

I have to admit that all week I was full of nervous anticipation. And then immediately after the contest I was full of a pie slice that I had scarfed so fast that I couldn’t appreciate its fine taste.

I wasn’t intentionally avoiding Scott Horsley, NPR’s White House reporter. But I hadn’t run into him all week until the contest on the penultimate day of the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. That’s the way this amoeba of a festival tends to be: Rare chance encounters only unless you arrange very specific plans.

The basic backstory is that Horsley and the rest of No Pie Refused was kind enough two years ago to try to defend their RAGBRAI team name by battling us in a pie-eating contest in Mount Vernon. It was a three-on-three relay in which each of us had to devour a slice before the next team member could begin chowing down.

The Register crushed them.

This year, Castalia’s reputation for pie began to echo across Iowa’s 99 counties shortly after the RAGBRAI route was announced. The RAGBRAI advance team’s effusive praise in June when they pedaled the entire route on the “pre-ride” only confirmed it: This small but plucky town of 166 would be the location.

Like any respectable sequel, we magnified both the scale and production values.

Our relay teams consisted of no fewer than seven gobblers, including me. Veterans of the first pie battle for the Register who have since moved on to other jobs, Michael Morain and Timothy Meinch, returned to defend their honor. (Thanks to pie crust made from lard, a lactose-intolerant Meinch was able to join the battle.) Morain even brought a custom traveling trophy for the occasion: a golden rolling pin that all the contestants signed with a Sharpie.

Our Register team was rounded out by reporters Kim Norvell and Linh Ta, photographer Kelsey Kremer and none other than the president himself, David Chivers, as anchor man.

Horsley lined up Danielle Kurtzleben, a political reporter and Iowa native from Titonka; Business Editor Les Cook; Scott Detrow, who covers Congress; Arnie Seipel, deputy political editor; Richard Harris, science correspondent; and Tom Fudge, a news editor in San Diego.

Another NPR science correspondent, Joe Palca, a veteran of the first battle who may never forget the woozy feeling of over-indulging on Iowa pie, was on hand and nearly agreed to play anchor man until more NPR riders showed up.

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We were kept honest by inspired judges above reproach: Mundt and Janice Koenig of Zion Lutheran each took a team and gave the thumbs up to indicate that each slice was fully swallowed before the relay continued. (We couldn’t just “chipmunk” the pie, as Horsley put it.)

The mob of onlookers beneath the tent got unruly when we contemplated using forks, so to keep the peace we shoveled in the pie with our hands.

Ta for the Register and Kurtzleben for NPR kicked off the relay.

And I have to admit that within the first several eaters (including me in the fourth spot) NPR got off to a fast start and leaped ahead.

But the tide turned when we reached the fifth slices. I give Horsley much credit for always being magnanimous in defeat and also shouldering the blame for his team.

“We had a lead coming into the fifth position,” he told Iowa Public Radio shortly after the contest as we handed the phone back and forth in the church basement. But Horsley was up against Morain, who ate faster than I could think to snap a photo of our crucial turn toward victory.

“I looked over and he just inhaled his slice,” Horsley said.

I think our anchor, Chivers, may have eaten even faster than Morain — and I’m not saying that just because he’s the president.

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So we won for a second time and will return to Des Moines with an ornate rolling pin to prove it. We may have to install the trophy near our “dining desk” in the newsroom were we continuously set out goodies to share.

Zion Lutheran even made medals for the winning team.

There you go, jaded news consumers: If you craved a summertime distraction from dreary news, a RAGBRAI pie-eating contest is about the best I can do.

The weather was beautiful and the scene idyllic Friday in Castalia.

The Wissmann family musicians sang and strummed gospel bluegrass next door on the parsonage porch to an adoring throng. The family band from Milford, Neb., began in 1999 among the parents and 13 kids. The mom, Gloria, was on upright bass Friday with seven of her children. (Five of the brood are married; so had all the spouses and grandchildren been there they wouldn’t have fit on the porch.)

Gloria’s mother, Marlys Hager, has been church organist at Zion for 67 years. Her dad is a Korean War veteran who hauled milk in the area for more than 40 years.

The Wissmann family entertains RAGBRAI riders in Castalia on Friday, July 28, 2017. (David Scrivner/Iowa City Press-Citizen)

The tent across the street where our pie battle took place was pitched on the site of a house that Gloria’s great-grandfather, a carpenter, built with his own hands in the early 20th century. It burned down several years ago.

Speaking of buildings in peril, RAGBRAI swept into town none too soon for Zion Lutheran.

I mentioned the church’s bell tower and steeple in the first paragraph: The pie and ice cream anchored a free-will donation fund-raiser to help the congregation of fewer than 200 save its skyline landmark. A leaky roof has riddled the tower, and estimates to fix it have run as high as $25,000, scaring the congregation.

Just as the church contemplated removing the steeple, it was announced that RAGBRAI would visit.

“It couldn’t have hit our church at a better time,” said Brett Willey as riders flocked to the table in front of him to grab pie slices and drop dollars into the donation box.

Our lunch hour in Castalia was spent devouring slices. But I like to think that, more importantly, we were helping to preserve a cherished centerpiece in a town that welcomed RAGBRAI with open arms (and ample pie).

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