Murphysboro -The contestants came hungry for success. Many triumphed. Others ended up with pie up their noses.

The 2004 Murphysboro Apple Festival offered spectators a little more than the usual carnival rides and apple brittle Thursday night. The festival’s apple pie eating contest drew a large, eager crowd willing to watch dozens of youngsters partake in the annual pig out.

Area schoolchildren and boy-scout troops, among others, competed against one another in the event, which has been held at the festival for over half a century.

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Chelsea Hinojosa, a 17-year-old senior from Murphysboro High School, competed along with her fellow Miss Apple Festival contestants Thursday. While she said the event is “messy,” Hinojosa was eager to compete.

“I’m ready for it,” she said. “I love apple pie.”

Other contestants didn’t share Hinojosa’s enthusiasm for the pie they were about to annihilate.

Megan Presley, a 13-year-old eighth grader from Murphysboro Middle School, was competing in the contest for the second time.

“The pie’s kind of nasty,” Presley said. “I’m just going to go on up there and stick my face in it.”

Rhonda Bryant’s daughter Danielle, an eighth grader competing with the Murphysboro Middle School’s cheerleading squad, was eager to compete for the “glory” of a possible win, but Bryant said her daughter’s lack of knowledge about apple pie might hurt her in the end.

“Danielle’s never eaten apple pie,” Bryant said. “She doesn’t like apples.”

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Throughout the night, as pie after pie faced another eager face ready for the taste of victory, several contestants were able to formulate top-secret plans in an effort to out-eat their competitors.

Ricky Barringer, 43, has been competing with the Miss Apple Festival candidates in the pie-eating contest for “a long time.” Before the contest, he stood by the stage contemplating his “secret plan” to win the event.

“(The plan) is right up here in my head,” Barringer said, pointing to his brow. “I’m ready to win again.”

However, Barringer’s secret plan failed, while Alexis Lorinskas, a 20-year-old molecular biology major at the University of Illinois, triumphed despite the obvious setbacks brought about by a messy pie-eating contest.

“I can’t really breathe because there’s pie in my nose,” Lorinskas said, when asked for comment following her pie-eating victory.

Ed Heller, a Murphysboro native who has been coming to the event for the past forty-three years, said the festival gives the community a chance to come together.

“We’re all out here because we have a kid or a grandkid in the contest,” Heller said. “That’s why communities have events like these, so the community can get together once a year.”