Oklahoma Well Wins Contest
For Best-Tasting Texas Water

LIPSCOMB, Texas — The best well water in the Texas Panhandle comes from Oklahoma. Joyce Hamilton of Fargo, Okla., won the sixth annual Well Water Tasting here this summer.

"The water came from the Walkin' J Ranch, south of Fargo," Hamilton says.

Hamilton's daughter, Kathy Fry, won second place with a Mason jar of well water from Lipscomb.

Lorene Bender of Amarillo won third place in the tasting.

Sparky Dawson of Arnett, Okla., won the prize for best dipper, a hollowed-out gourd.

"It was my mother’s," Dawson says.

This is not the first time in the winner's circle for Hamilton.

She won first place twice in the past and was third two years ago.

Hamilton was late getting to the contest the year she placed third. She was involved in a wreck on the way to Lipscomb.

"I was hit," she says.

Fry, her daughter, says she couldn't even get the door to her vehicle open because of the damage, but she made it to Lipscomb to compete in the water tasting.

Fry won first place two years ago.

Debbie Opdyke of Naturally Yours Gallery here says the annual Well Water Tasting started when another art gallery in town had a wine tasting.

Opdyke and her partner, Jan Luna, decided to counter with a well water tasting.

The water has to be brought to the tasting in a Mason jar.

At a wine tasting, judges cleanse their pallets with water and crackers. Opdyke and Luna initially decided that at their well tasting, judges should cleanse their palettes with wine.

"Somebody said biscuits could work, too," Opdyke says.

The first year, one of the judges walked off with a wine bottle, Opdyke says, so they decided to stick with just the biscuits.

"We just thought it was kind of a hoot," Opdyke says.

Opdyke admits that water tasting is highly subjective.

"Judging a well water tasting party is not a real fine science," she admits.

If there are any complaints, the complainants get to be a judge the next year.

"That's their punishment," Debby says.

They give ribbons and prizes for first, second and third places, but the most significant prize is the coveted bottom-check award.

"It is somewhat green," Debby says. "It comes from the bottom of a well. It's the well check with the ball that floats. It's getting to be quite famous, actually."