“It’s people from all over the country, and it’s not just fun,” Auvil said. Champions agree to quit competing and return the next year to judge and help organize the friendly chaos. Jonathan Auvil, holding the conch shell, and the four other “Papa” finalists, including Pensacola lawyer Christopher Dutton, the young Hemingway to right of Auvil, and Tampa lawyer Paul Phillips, one of the other three Hemingways pictured.Īuvil says the victory was even sweeter because he got to share it with two other Florida Bar members who landed with him in the top-five - Christopher Dutton of Pensacola and Paul Phillips of Tampa.Īfter plunking down the $35 entry fee, the winner, like other contestants, gets a t-shirt, but not much more than bragging rights. It was enough for Auvil to claim victory in the 41st annual “Hemingway Look-Alike Contest” sponsored by the iconic Sloppy Joe’s Bar.Īuvil’s triumph over 124 other contestants scored headlines in the New York Post and London’s The Guardian, among many, many other publications and platforms. “A lot of guys wear the sweater, and at that time of year, I will tell you, it is cruel and unusual punishment.” “We put an unbelievable amount of time into figuring out that two minutes,” Auvil recalls. Jonathan Auvil, a 64-year-old Dade City attorney, had it in spades on a recent Saturday when he boldly took the stage in a Key West bar - suffocating in a wool sweater in the merciless July heat - and calmly delivered a 120-second pitch. “This has become the most profitable week of the year, at least for Sloppy Joe’s.”Įrnest Hemingway defined courage as “grace under pressure.” Dade City lawyer Jon Auvil claimed the 41st annual “Hemingway Look-Alike Contest” sponsored by the iconic Sloppy Joe’s Bar in Key West July 16. Auvil’s victory in the look-a-like contest ended eight years of competition and he says the real prize is membership in the “Papa” fellowship, and an opportunity to promote the competition’s lesser-known charitable efforts. The look-alike contest, a feature of the “Hemingway Days Festival,” began in 1981 for reasons not altogether literary or historical, Auvil acknowledges. “They came up with the concept because it is so miserably hot in Key West in July, and businesses were starving,” he said.