Lynda Kuerth’s non-Philadelphia contests

The UEPa cheesesteak tour will start at Jim’s Steaks, where Lynda Kuerth broke the challenge record twice in 1977. She also won a bunless hot dog eating contest in Philadelphia that year. Google news search has recently added searching scanned newspaper archives, which has made it possible to try to piece together Ms. Kuerth’s eating contest history. Some contest results from that archive are below:

1975 winner Olivet College (MI) banana split eating contest (amount unknown)
1976 winner Olivet College (MI) banana split eating contest (15 banana splits)
1977 winner Olivet College (MI) banana split eating contest (13 banana splits)
1978 winner Polock Johnny’s Polish sausage eating contest (Baltimore) 19 Polish sausages

Quotations from the source articles are after the jump (Lynda’s name is spelled incorrectly in all articles):

The Holland Evening Sentinel (Newspaper) – April 24, 1976, Holland, MI

A 250 pound football Lineman couldn’t do it but 5 foot 8 120 pound Lynda Kurtch (sic) could. At OLIVET College’s second annual banana split eating Contest this The OLIVET junior ate 15 of The ice cream and she did it after eating a full dinner. This is the second year she has taken top banana split eating honors. it took her closest competitor 90 minutes to eat eight splits.

The Chronicle Telegram (Newspaper) – February 10, 1977, Elyria, Ohio

Slender and attractive Linda Querth (sic) had 10 pieces of pizza For lunch and six generous slices of meat loaf For dinner before she even entered The The contest at OLIVET College then She slurped up 13 banana splits to win. it was The third straight year the senior from Beulah, Mich., has walked away with top honors In The banana split contest Last year, She put away 15. Miss Querth, 5-foot-10 and 135 pounds, consumed 156.2 ounces of ice cream alone.

Capital, The (Newspaper) – June 13, 1978, Annapolis, Maryland

Linda Kuerth downs a double-header Polish sausage en route to an easy vic- tory in The annual Polock Johnny’s sausage derby Saturday. Ms. Kuerth, from Beulah, Mich., ate 19 of The greasy, garlicky tidbits to become The first woman to win The derby, which started six years ago. The 5-foot, 10-inch, 135 pound red-haired woman credits her eating ability to “high metabo- lism.

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