2008 Winner: Tom Grizzard

Tom Grizzard, Papa 2008, recalls the summer of 2000, as the year “this all started.” They were visiting Key West when his wife, Linda, noticed a Hemingway t-shirt and thought Tom “really looked like Papa.” Tom made the 2001 finals the first year he entered and he was hooked.

Tom said of Hemingway, “I relate to his love of the sea and love of people.”

He beat out 141 other contenders in his eighth competition to be named Papa 2008. That was the year he “really did not come with any expectations.” He just had fun, relishing and enjoying the relationships created over the past eight years.

In April, 2009, he traveled from his home in Leesburg, Florida, to Pamplona for the first Pamplona Hemingway Look-Alike competition. The Government Department sponsored the international competition and some 2,000 people gathered for the finals and watched as Tom took that title, too.