THE BEACH BUM AWARDS

      The Pensacola Beach BEACH BUM AWARDS are an annual event.  The 
      Awards are conducted at a local bar shortly after Labor Day, the 
      psychological end of tourist season.  The event draws a big crowd 
      of locals wondering, "Who is going to be THE BUM?"

      Several awards are presented each year.  They are:

Beach Bum of the Year

Rookie Beach Bum---a new arrival showing promise.
              

              The SANDSPUR Sandspur Award---for the most humongous
              sandspur found on the Island that year.

              The Haute Cuisine Award---given to a restaurateur guilty of
              having committed gastronomical atrocities.

      The first BEACH BUM AWARDS took place in 1976 at the now-defunct 
      FOUL DECK BAR.  The owners thought up the Awards to drum up 
      business after tourist season and, more importantly, to publicly 
      recognize what they described as, "Really awesome customers."

      The BEACH BUM OF THE YEAR is not chosen as part of a popularity 
      contest.  One of the former Foul Deck Bar owners interrogates a 
      loose group known as the Council of Winos, bar owners, bartenders, 
      and local customers to try to achieve some consensus.  There has 
      never been unanimity in the choice.  Most years there is barely a 
      consensus.  There are lots of arguments.

      The qualifications for the award are vague.  We can only guess at 
      the qualifications indirectly.  Past winners share some common 
      traits.  They really enjoy themselves on Pensacola Beach.  They all 
      have demonstrated a fondness for a cool one or several before or 
      after the sun goes below the yardarm.  They have shown a general 
      disdain for work.  They manage to pull off these behavior sets with 
      a great amount of style.

      The BEACH BUM OF THE YEAR keeps his or her trophy for one year.  It 
      is still the original driftwood piece with a beer can and a little 
      wooden pirate glued to it.  The trophy has survived some rough 
      years at winners' homes and almost got washed out to sea in 1995 in 
      Hurricane Opal.  The ROOKIES gets to keep their trophies.

      The winner of the SANDSPUR Sandspur Award usually get a free pizza 
      from a Beach pizzeria and fame and adulation and awe for handling 
      such a huge natural land mine.  The winner of the HAUTE CUISINE 
      AWARD gets none of those things.     

photos of reigning bums