18 FLAPJACKS TOPS ALL IN PANCAKE EATING CONTEST; NOON LIONS CLUB RAISES $9,000, SERVES 3,139 DURING PANCAKE DAY

Still chewing the two flapjacks he had stuffed into his mouth at the last second, Bill Peifer won the pancake eating prize for Sigma Chi fraternity at a contest held during Wednesday's Pancake Day.

Peifer downed 18 pancakes in 20 minutes to win the Southeast Missouri State University interfraternity pancake eating contest, a new feature at the Noon Lions Club's fund raiser. Lions Club members spent from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. serving up pancakes and sausages to 3,139 people at A.C. Brase Arena.

Dan Linn, Pancake Day chairman, said the club raised about $9,000 and served about 9,400 pancakes.

About 300 eyeglasses were donated to a Lions Club program to provide vision correction for those who can't afford glasses.

Peifer's last-minute mouth-stuffing trick was in response to a challenge from second-place winner Jeremy Weber, a Phi Delta Theta member who is on the executive board of Southeast's Interfraternity Council, which sponsored the contest.

While Peifer ate quickly in the first five minutes to take an early lead, Weber set a more leisurely pace at the beginning of the contest, in which representatives from four fraternities competed to see who could consume the most pancakes in 20 minutes. By the halfway point, Weber was matching Peifer pancake for pancake, and at 15 minutes into the contest the two were tied.

Peifer, a beefy guy with muscular arms and chest, looked more the part of an eating contest winner. Weber, on the other hand, is a tall, lanky guy. In fact, at one point in the contest, Zack Pavich, a member Pi Kappa Alpha who placed third by eating 10 pancakes, turned to Weber and asked, "Where are you putting all those?"

Fourth place went to Michael Mauck of Sigma Phi Epsilon. He downed nine pancakes.

The contestants couldn't use utensils, so all ate with their hands. Butter and syrup were optional. Peifer and Mauck folded their pancakes in half and dipped them in syrup before eating them. Weber spread syrup on each flapjack, then rolled it jelly-roll style. Pavich was the more refined of the group, shaping each into a quarter fold and filling the folds with syrup.

Mark Haaser of the Southeast Missouri State University Interfraternity Council said the organization came up with the idea for a pancake eating contest as a way of spreading the word about Pancake Day. About 20 fraternity members turned out to root on their representatives.

It wasn't the first pancake eating contest associated with Pancake Day. Rob Williams, a Lions Club member who was a sausage cooker Wednesday, said he remembered seeing such a contest at a Pancake Day about 50 years ago. He recalled the winner ate 25 pancakes, but he pointed out he was just a youngster at the time.

The contest had fallen by the wayside until now.

As he has declared the winner, Peifer looked a little shaky with his cheeks still bulging with those last-second pancakes. But he managed to keep the pancakes "internalized" as contest rules stipulated. It did take him about five minutes of chewing before he was ready for his victory press conference.

How did he win? "I took a big lead at the beginning, then paced myself for the rest," he said between burps.

Will he be eating pancakes again soon?

"No," he answered.