My first Chicago show did not disappoint. The pipes were beautiful, the tobacco bountiful, the faces friendly, and the days were long. And I was truly grateful to represent the United Pipe Clubs of America at this event.
The UPCA Annual Meeting was held at 4pm on Friday, May 27th in the smoking tent. There were 15 people in attendance, representing 12 member clubs and possibly 2 prospective clubs. The meeting was productive, discussing what the new board had worked on since their election in October. Significant time was dedicated to discussing near-future plans. The meeting minutes can be found here: https://unitedpipeclubs.org/content.aspx?page_id=86&club_id=90797 .
Following the Annual Meeting, the 1st Annual UPCA Fast Smoke Contest was held in the smoking tent. For a description of a fast smoke contest, see our website: https://unitedpipeclubs.org/content.aspx?page_id=4002&club_id=90797&item_id=1701539. There were 7 contestants, and the winner was Clarence Van Camp of Furniture City Pipe Society with a time of 7 minutes, 29 seconds. We are grateful to Missouri Meerschaum for their donation of the contest pipe, a bent Rob Roy Natural, as well as the first place prize, a Missouri Meerschaum trademark metal sign and $30 Missouri Meerschaum gift certificate. We are also grateful to Mark Ryan of Ryan and Daughters and the L.A. Poche Perique Tobacco Co. for their donation of the contest tobacco, Rimboche A.P. This event was a crowd pleaser! Come out next year, if you’ve got the guts!
The National Pipe Smoking competition was held on Sunday afternoon. We thank Kaywoodie for the beautiful contest pipe, a special sandblast billiard stamped "Shellcraft Kaywoodie" and "UPCA Chicago 2022".
The tobacco, courtesy of Sutliff, was Mac Baren Navy Mixture (Ready-Rubbed), a complex mixture of over 30 different raw tobaccos featuring ready-rubbed Virginia and Burley tobaccos, loose cut Virginia, Burley and the Original Mac Baren Cavendish blended with small pieces of flake tobacco.
The overall winner, at 1:10:00, was Raymond Lykins, a now four-time National Pipe Smoking Contest champion! 
The women’s Division Champion was Scottie Piersel with a time of 50:00. Manduela was this year’s International Champion with a time of 33:50. 
We would like to thank the Chicago Pipe Collector’s Club (CPCC) for donating the trophies, which featured pipe holders! We were truly humbled by all of the generous prize donations. 
And thank you to David-Dorian Ross for photographing the event. More photos can be found on our website: https://unitedpipeclubs.org/content.aspx?page_id=187&club_id=907
Contest pipes will be made available for purchase to member clubs soon! Stay posted!
Going forward, we hope to provide more regular updates to our UPCA members. In the meantime, feel free to reach out to us on our Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/groups/unitedpipeclubs or by email at president@unitedpipeclubs.org
Kyle Bowen
President, UPCA