2008 TICC Champion a former Maryland resident and MDP Great Pepper!!

Susan Dean’s first chili experience was in Maryland, as a groupie, accompanying her husband, Alan, to various CASI cook-offs.  She was content to let him be the cook, allowing her to enjoy the fun and camaraderie with those in attendance.

All of that changed in 1997, when Susan was drafted to insure fifteen cooks for a cook-off in Washington, DC.  Susan was pressed into cooking action again, eight months later, at the annual Fourth of July cook-off in Vienna, Virginia.  She won that event, leaving her just one point shy of qualifying to cook in Terlingua.

At Alan’s insistence, Susan cooked again, in September, at the Hanover, Pennsylvania cook-off in an attempt to qualify for the 1998 Terlingua International Chili Championship.  Susan won again and qualified easily.

Susan still was not convinced.  She was afraid the stress of competition would interfere with the fun she had attending cook-off’s.  Nevertheless, she agreed to compete in Terlingua, where, in only her fourth cook-off, she placed seventh!

There was no hesitation after such an auspicious beginning, and Susan began competing on a regular basis in 1999.  She has easily qualified to cook in TICC every year since then, placing fourth in 2007.

One of her biggest Terlingua thrills came in 2005 as she announced from the stage that her grandson, Michael, had just been born.