Contest Hours: Thurs: 5 p.m. – 11 p.m.; Fri: 12 p.m. – 11 p.m.; Sat: 9 a.m.-11 p.m.

Barbecue enthusiasts around Texas are gearing up for the 2012 World’s Championship Bar-B-Que Contest being held February 23 to 25, 2012. This highly anticipated contest is a great warm-up party before the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. Every year BBQ lovers and foodies alike flock to Houston for the festivities.

Admission costs allow BBQ goers to enjoy a chopped beef sandwich plate served in the public tent, The Chuck Wagon. The ticket also includes admission to the KILT carnival at Reliant Park, a great place to bring the kiddos. Don’t fill yourself up in the Chuck Wagon because there are lots of great vendors who are eager to share their BBQ with you.

Judging for the BBQ contest will begin on Thursday, February 23, from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. and resume the following day from 12 p.m. to 11 p.m. The final day of judging will be Saturday, February 25, from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Winners will be announced during the 2012 Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. Contest goers must have an invitation to visit most of the competition cooking booths, however, food vendors are set up all over the grounds waiting to stuff BBQ lovers with great food.

During the contest, visitors can take a break from eating and enjoy live music performances at the Rockin’ BBQ Saloon. Live performances from The Black Matches, Max Stalling, Kimberly Kelly and many more will get the crowd rockin’ all day and into the night. The tent will be located at the intersection of Chuck Wagon Way and Astrodome Way and will boast dancing and DJ music as well as adult beverages on the patio in the Champion Wine Garden located adjacent to the saloon. The Rockin’ BBQ Saloon is free to the public during the competition. Artists such as Josh Abbot, Shiny Toy Guns and Charlie Robinson will be showcased along with others at the Miller Stage at the Garden. Just as there will be no shortage of beef brisket, there will be no shortage of good live music during the BBQ contest.

For those who like to plan ahead, the 2012 team map is now available, so BBQ lovers can jump online to find their favorite competitors from years past.

The 2011 winner, Craig Sharry with Texas Pepper Jelly, won excellent brisket and overall champion BBQ. The contest drew over 200,000 eaters and 400 BBQ competitors.

In addition to the actual competition there will be an array of food venders throughout Reliant Park. They too, will be competing for a prize: The Gold Buckle Foodie Award. Visitors should feel free to stop and purchase food from top competitors and winners alike. While you walk around and stuff yourself with the world’s best BBQ, don’t forget to leave room for some of the vendors who won the 2011 Gold Buckle Foodie Award:

(credit: Thinkstock)

Best Seafood

1st: Berryhill Baja Grill’s crispy shrimp taco
2nd: Sudie’s Catfish House’s duo of fried shrimp and oysters

Best Burger

1st: Holmes Smokehouse’s angus, bacon, cheese mushroom burger
2nd: Paradise Burger’s ½ lb bacon cheeseburger
3rd: Texas Sized Pizza by the Slice’s cheesy burger bites

Best BBQ

1st: Big Bubba’s Bad BBQ’s pork spare ribs (RCS Carnival Midway)
2nd: Ranch House Pork Barn’s pulled pork bbq sandwich
3rd: Ranch House Burger Barn’s bar-b-que pork ribs

Best Fried Food

1st: Sweet Cheeks’ deep fried moon pie (RCS Carnival Midway)
2nd: Bear Mountain Bison’s Buffalo chips with The Works
3rd: Texas Sized Pizza by the Slice’s Tornado Potato Fries smothered and covered

Favorite Food

1st: Granny’s Cheesecake & More’s chocolate dipped cheesecake
2nd: Sill’s Funnel Cake Hause’s funnel cake
3rd: Saltgrass Steakhouse’s ribs and chicken platter

Best Dessert

1st: Sills Funnel Cake House’s banana split funnel cake
2nd: Stubby’s Cinnamon Rolls’ cinnamon roll with “The Works”
3rd: Cobbler Café’s pecan cobbler with soft serve vanilla ice cream

Best Gourmet

1st: DGZ Chocolates & Fudge’s Toffarazzi (toffee)
2nd: The Caramel Candy Co.’s pecan caramel
3rd: Kettle Korn of Texas’s ribeye sandwich

There is no shortage of things to enjoy while attending the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo World’s Championship Bar-B-Que Contest. Guests may appreciate the food, wine and fun available at every corner of the festivities. Feel free to visit the HLSR website to stay up to date on scheduling and competitor details.

Stefanie is a freelance writer living in Houston and has studied Culinary Arts for over 8 years. She is currently an active membership contributor for the Indie Food Network. She specializes in affordable recipes and cooking. Her work can be found at Examiner.com.

Second-year post Patrick Patterson has been inserted into the lineup in place of veteran Sam Dalembert. There was no question Dalembert had one of his worst games of the season, but putting Patterson in against another big lineup could be trouble for the Rockets.

Patterson, who is 6-foot-9 and 235 pounds will matchup against 6-foot-10, 289-pound Al Jefferson in the middle tonight and that looks like a big mismatch. The Rockets will also be without backup center Jordan Hill, who will miss at least the next two weeks after a suffering a right knee injury during Saturday’s practice.

The billboard, which is in English and weighs 3 tons, was placed near an international bridge in Ciudad Juarez and can be seen from the United States.

Calderon said the billboard’s letters were made with weapons seized by local, state and federal authorities.

“Dear friends of the United States, Mexico needs your help to stop this terrible violence that we’re suffering,” Calderon said in English during the unveiling ceremony.

“The best way to do this is to stop the flow of automatic weapons into Mexico,” he added.

Before unveiling the billboard, Calderon supervised the destruction of more than 7,500 automatic rifles and handguns at a military base in Ciudad Juarez.

Calderon said more than 140,000 weapons have been seized since December 2006, when he launched a crackdown against drug traffickers. More than 47,500 people have been killed since then.

One of the cities most affected by the violence is Ciudad Juarez, where more than 9,000 have died in drug violence since 2008.

Also Thursday, the country’s Attorney General said a federal prosecutor assigned to a northern state has been detained on suspicion of protecting the brutal Zetas drug cartel.

Attorney General Marisela Morales said federal prosecutor Claudia Gonzalez has been sent to prison. She didn’t say when Gonzalez was detained or give any other details.

Gonzalez was based in the city of Saltillo, capital of the border state of Coahuila.

The state on the border with Texas has seen a spike of violence as the Zetas and the Sinaloa drug cartel fight for control of drug smuggling routes into the United States.

(© Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

UT’s Energy Institute says contamination can occur due to spills above ground or mishandling of wastewater. But the institute argues that those problems are not caused directly by fracking.

Fracking involves pumping pressurized water, sand and chemicals underground to open fissures and improve the flow of oil and gas to the surface. It’s used to improve productivity in gas reserves all over the U.S., including the Barnett Shale in North Texas.

An Energy Institute spokesman says no industry funds paid for the project. Fracking opponents say the study needs to be reviewed.

(© Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

However, to do that, the first order of business is to hire a head football coach and that “must do” date is quickly approaching, says Moniaci.

“My time line is to get somebody in here the first week in March. I’d like to have somebody in here the first week of March.”

The dollar amount needed to hire a head football coach and launch the program is roughly $500,000.00. But the monetary gift that’s being donated is much larger says Moniaci. While he did not disclose the name of the donor, he did state that HBU is expecting the gift any day now.

“It all depends on when that donation comes in. I really feel like we can turn this thing around once we get the donation in.”

Moniaci says he has a national pool of about 100 candidates from which to choose, but will cut that list down to roughly 10. He will slice the list of 10 down to a number that he plans to interview. Current and former professional head coaches have applied as well as current pro assistants, current college head coaches, current college assistants, and current high school coaches.

INSTITUTING FOOTBALL JUST MAKES SENSE

According to Moniaci, there are 4 main reasons why HBU decided to institute the sport of football. They wanted to increase the male enrollment, have more opportunities to engage their alumni, generate additional dollars, and by the way; this is the football-crazed State of Texas.

“If you’re a college, or university in the State of Texas, and you’re not playing football, you’re not really in the conversation; and as an institution, we want to be in the conversation. I call it the water cooler talk on Monday morning. If your school played football on Saturday in the fall, on Monday morning people are going to talk about it at work. If your school didn’t play football, you’re probably not part of that conversation.”

But what became a big part of the conversation among the administration was the definite possibility of increasing the male population on campus. HBU currently has more than 2,500 undergraduate and graduate students; a very large number of those are female.

“Adding the sport of football gives you more male athletes on your campus, obviously, and not just your football players, says Moniaci. Males tend to like to go to schools that play football whether they’re going to play football or not.”

“There was a study done that showed that for every football player you recruit, you could expect to see two more additional males on your campus. Our campus had begun to be skewed a little bit female. And so this is a way to kind of offset that.”

Moniaci and HBU also look for the sport to help somewhat finance itself. Football is an equivalency sport at the FCS level and not a head-count sport. The FCS level is unlike the FBS level where full scholarships are offered to individual players at institutions such as Rice and Alabama.

“At the FCS level, it’s 63 scholarships divided among 90-plus players,” says Moniaci. “If you give up 63 scholarships and, let’s say, you have roughly around 100 players, that’s 37 people who are paying to come to school here. That’s pretty good dollars at our institution.”

PRACTICE FACILITY – GAME DAY VENUE

The Southland Conference took HBU as a new member three weeks after coming to visit the campus in the fall of 2011 for a look-see. They will become an official member July 1, 2013 and will immediately begin competing for championships in all sports with the exception of men’s soccer. They will continue to compete in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation.

The Huskies plan to develop practice facilities on campus towards the Beechnut side, but will not initially play on campus. Moniaci says HBU would like to build a practice facility on campus which will give them the ability to eventually build a 15-to-20,000 seat stadium around it.

Meanwhile, they’re looking at different venues around the City and one of those is the new BBVA Compass Center, new home of the Houston Dynamo and Texas Southern Football. Obviously, playing there is roughly two to three years away. But, the new facility could be a possibility.

“One thing is, I don’t know for sure how much outside activity the dynamo are going to allow in there and TSU. The Dynamo and TSU are the two primary stakeholders in that facility. I don’t know if they know for sure yet and the facility is not done yet. I think we’ll get into some serious conversations with them, if they want to do that, once I get a head coach hired and once they get their building open.”

PLANNED AREA REVITALIZATION

HBU is located right in the heart of Southwest Houston along the Southwest Freeway. During the late 1970′ s, ’80’s, and early ‘90’s, the wide and vast area spreading east and west of Hillcroft and Bissonnet along the Southwest Freeway, was one of the fastest growing and more desirable places to live among some of Houston’s elite as well as young, well-educated professionals. In addition, one of SW Houston’s trendy shopping destinations, Sharpstown Mall, was one of the most popular malls in Houston.

That has since changed. Due to the affect of an economic downturn, huge job losses, transience, and a lack of continued development, the area has suffered. Moniaci and HBU see improvement with their vision and the addition of football.

“We’re trying to help bring it back; that’s exactly what we’re trying to do. One of our Ten Pillars is to improve the community around us. And so, we want to try and make it better for the residents of the area now. So, we feel like developing that piece of the freeway there could go a long way towards sparking some future development all the way around us.”

BIG VISION

HBU just purchased Memorial Hermann Wellness Center which is now the fitness center for HBU students. Plans are in the works to begin moving some of their athletic offices, which would include football, into the new facility.

Because HBU owns the land from the Wellness Center along the SW Freeway to Fondren Road, long term plans, according to Moniaci, include the development of athletic facilities, multi-use, residential properties for the campus, and retail venues. But, he added that there’s a study currently being conducted to decide exactly what to do with that land.

“We want a bigger presence,” says Moniaci.

Once the head football coach is hired, the plan for a bigger presence begins at HBU.

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But one Democrat, in a seeming attempt to fight the measure, added an amendment to the bill stating that “every sperm is sacred,” according to Think Progress.

State Sen. Constance Johnson, D-Oklahoma City, added language which states that masturbation and sex acts other than vaginal intercourse could be considered detrimental to unborn children as abortion.

“[A]ny action in which a man ejaculates or otherwise deposits semen anywhere but in a woman’s vagina shall be interpreted and construed as an action against an unborn child,” the amendment states.

As for those who support the personhood movement, Republican Gov. Mary Fallin joined dozens of members of the House and Senate for a Rose Day rally in the House chamber in which lawmakers touted their anti-abortion credentials to the applause of rose-wielding abortion opponents who packed the House gallery.

Even as two previous abortion measures approved by the Republican-controlled Oklahoma Legislature remain bogged down amid court challenges, lawmakers this year want to further restrict a woman’s legal right to terminate a pregnancy. Among several bills being considered this year are measures granting “personhood” status to embryos and requiring women seeking an abortion to first listen to the heartbeat of a fetus. Another would prohibit the use of aborted human fetuses in food, despite the Senate author’s concession he’s unaware of any company using such a practice.

“For whatever reason, in recent years Oklahoma has had an abysmal record on reproductive rights and issues and has been engaged on a continuous assault on women’s health and rights, and it’s very disappointing,” said Stephanie Toti, a senior attorney at the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights, which has sued to stop two separate Oklahoma abortion laws from taking effect.

A bill passed two years ago requiring women seeking an abortion to first have an ultrasound performed and another approved last year restricting the use of abortion-inducing medications both have been temporarily blocked while the court considers legal challenges.

This year, two separate “personhood” measures have been introduced — one that would place the issue on the November ballot and another that would put into statute that life begins in Oklahoma once an egg has been fertilized.

“What I’m stating in the bill is that it’s the policy of the state of Oklahoma that life begins at conception,” said Sen. Brian Crain, R-Tulsa.

Crain, an attorney, says he patterned the language after a similar measure approved in Missouri in 1986 that the U.S. Supreme Court later ruled was constitutional. He said his bill would not outlaw abortion or the use of certain birth control methods.

“Anyone that was to say this bill outlaw abortions or would say that this is going to make doctors criminally liable is ignoring what has been the hallmark of the pro-abortion movement since 1973, which is Roe versus Wade,” he said, referring to the landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive-health research organization that supports abortion rights, eight states already have enacted laws requiring abortion providers make available the sounds of a fetal heartbeat. Another 22 states are pushing some sort of effort to establish fetal personhood.

Tony Lauinger, chairman of Oklahomans for Life, said the ultimate goal of the personhood and fetal heartbeat bills is to save the lives of the unborn.

“We hope that as many lives can be saved as is possible to save, and not only does that benefit the child whose life is spared, but it benefits the mother who steps back from the irrevocable, lethal act of taking her child’s life,” Lauinger said.

But Crain’s bill, which was approved earlier this week in a Senate committee, already is prompting some doctors to express grave concerns about the chilling effect it could have on reproductive medical services.

“These are bills that have very vast and a plethora of unintended consequences,” said Dr. Eli Reshef, a reproductive endocrinologist and the medical director of the Bennett Fertility Institute at Integris Baptist Hospital in Oklahoma City. “In vitro fertilization is the process where we take the sperm and the egg, put them together in a laboratory. All of a sudden in the lab now we’re stewards of persons?”

Reshef accused Crain and other Oklahoma lawmakers of “pandering to the extreme right” and said these types of bills contradict another goal of Republicans, which is fostering a pro-business environment in the state.

“A bill like this will not only be an embarrassment to the intellect of any Oklahoman, but it will have a potential impact about the image of the state, including its economic wellbeing,” Reshef said.

(TM and © Copyright 2012 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2012 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)