Flipping through the newspaper over a decade ago, David Puckett saw an advertisement for a judging class for judging competition barbecue. This piqued his interest and led to the start of PuckDaddy’s Killer Q journey to competing in the KCBS World Invitational.

“I went and took the class, which was through the Kansas City Barbecue Society, which is the largest barbecue competition and regulating body in the world. That was close to 15 years ago; they had very few master judges,” Puckett said.

Puckett, accompanied by his wife Angie, began traveling the country judging barbecue competitions. It wasn’t too long before he wondered how hard it was to cook it.

“I was just like everybody else here. When I grew up, you had H&H and Hickory House. You basically ate pulled pork and sometimes chicken. My dad, the only thing he ever did every now and again was grill hamburgers or burnt chicken. I didn’t know anything about it. I started trying to learn, and finally, after a year or two of torturing my family and stuff, I decided to try a local contest,” he said.

In his first contest, he made chicken, ribs and pork, resulting in two top ten calls. Now he has competed in approximately 140 contests.

When Puckett was appointed and then elected as district court judge, he moved from his private practice law office to his office at the courthouse. This meant he had to downsize and figure out what to do with the 11 moving boxes of trophies he has won over the years.

“My wife doesn’t want to keep them at the house,” he said. “When I came over here, I kept my office over there kind of because, one, I didn’t have time to clean it out. Two, I didn’t know what I was going to do with all this stuff. When I came over here, Angie said, ‘Don’t junk up your office over here with barbecue stuff.’”

He carefully selected some of his favorite trophies and they line the room of his courthouse office. The rest are in boxes inside his pole barn.

“For four years in a row, I was either state champion or reserve state champion. Then, in 2020, I went to the first world championship, I reserve granded it. That’s second place overall,” he said.

“It’s a lot of work the week before a contest. I do everything. I gotta buy the meat; prep the meat; buy everything for my brines, injections and sauces. People ask me how I can relax when I got to do all this work and get it turned in by a certain time. Because I don’t think about anything else. Anything else that is out there is gone. It is a way for me to relax,” Puckett said.

Puckett recently returned from the KCBS World Championship in Kansas where more than 100 teams were competing. There are two categories: professional and backyard. He competes in the backyard category.

“I went out there to win. I didn’t want to come in second, or anywhere else. In chicken, the top three all got a perfect score, and I was number off from getting a perfect score. It put me in a position to win, depending on what I did in ribs. It rained all night and that morning. The humidity in the air makes whatever you are smoking cook faster. My ribs got done two hours before turn in time. I put them in my cambro to hold. I went out there to win,” he said.

“I pulled the ribs when they are a little bit tighter than I normally do. For a rib to be perfectly cooked, according to KCBS judging standards, it’s got to come clean off the bone, just the bite, but it’s got to have a little bit of tug to it. Mine, here lately, I’ve been barely overcooking it and you get that bite, comes off the bone clean, but there hasn’t been a tug to it, which I kinda like, but you gotta cook them to the standards,” Puckett said.

PuckDaddy’s Killer Q finished in fourth place in chicken and 17th in ribs for a ninth place overall finish.

One consequence to being in barbecue competitions for more than a decade is Puckett hardly eats barbecue anymore. Despite not particularly wanting to eat barbecue, he has no plans to stop entering competitions. His goal is to qualify for another shot at the title of KCBS World Champion next year.

“I want to win. That’s what I am there for. I’ve been doing this for so long. I don’t want trophies. I just want to go win,” he said.