Twelve of the World's Fastest Eaters Are Coming for Lewisville's Tamale Title. Plus, Western Days Still Needs Volunteers.

Thursday, September 17th (today).

Friday, September 18th.

Saturday, September 19th.

Monday, September 21st.

Registration has closed for the World Tamale Eating Championship, and the city has posted the field: twelve competitive eaters, ten minutes, and a stage in front of City Hall on Saturday, September 26. It starts at 1 PM, right in the middle of Western Days, and it is free to stand there and watch.

The name to know is Geoff Esper, ranked fourth in the world and the most decorated eater this contest has, with titles in 2017, 2019, 2021 and 2023. He is chasing a number that is not his. The record on the books is 96 tamales in ten minutes, set here in 2025 by Joey Chestnut, who is not in this year's field.

The rest of the lineup runs deep. James Webb comes in ranked third. Radim Dvoracek is tenth. Derek Hendrickson, eleventh, won this thing in 2022, and Adrian Morgan, nineteenth, won it in 2016. Nathan Biller of Wichita Falls is on the list too, and he still holds the Texas record at 50.5 tamales.

A few things worth knowing before you elbow your way to the front. The tamales are traditional pork, roughly 2.5 ounces each, and they come shucked, which has been the rule since the very first contest in 2005. That first one was not even held in Old Town. It ran at a Bassmaster event out at Lewisville Lake. And in twenty-one years, exactly one Lewisville resident has ever placed in the money: Zack Alvarado, fifth in 2009 with 23.5 tamales.

Event Details

📅 Date: Saturday, September 26

🕐 Time: 1 PM

📍 Location: City Hall stage, 151 W. Church Street

💲 Admission: Free to watch, though Western Days charges $15 after 6 PM for ages 13 and up

Source: City of Lewisville World Tamale Eating Championship

The city is still taking volunteer applications for Western Days, and the festival is eight days away. Shifts are open both Friday and Saturday, and the roles cover a lot of ground, so there is usually something that fits whatever you are willing to do.

The rules are simple. Volunteers have to be at least 14, and anyone under 18 needs a parent or guardian along. Everything goes through volunteer.cityoflewisville.com, and if you have never used the city's volunteer portal, you create an account first and the open shifts show up after that.

What you would be helping run is not small. Six stages of live entertainment, the Eli Young Band on Friday and the Randy Rogers Band on Saturday, an expanded Western Village sponsored by Frost Bank, the Indigenous ACE Dance Troupe, Kid Kountry Playground, Lucha Libre wrestling, and the tamale championship. Gates open at 4 PM Friday and noon Saturday.

If you would rather just attend, the same math applies to your calendar. Admission is free before 6 PM both days.

Event Details

📅 Date: Friday, September 25 and Saturday, September 26

🕐 Time: Friday 4 to 11:30 PM, Saturday noon to 11:30 PM

📍 Location: Old Town Lewisville, centered on Wayne Ferguson Plaza

💲 Admission: Free before 6 PM both days, $15 after 6 PM for ages 13 and up

Source: City of Lewisville

Thirteen Lewisville ISD elementary students were named 2026 National Math Stars, selected from a nationwide pool of roughly 9,000 applicants that the nonprofit narrowed to just over 600. Fewer than 7 percent of applicants get in.

Three of the thirteen were named Voyager Stars, the track the organization describes as carrying more than $100,000 of investment per student over ten years: Layth Nasir of Donald Elementary, Maksym Shevchenko of Hebron Valley Elementary and Steven Tang of Forest Vista Elementary.

The other ten were named Pathfinder Stars: Yunwoo Choi of Hebron Valley, Jason Duran of Bluebonnet, Toby Hoang of Morningside, Aiden Jang of Forest Vista, Gia Kaur of Independence, Maurya Koneni of Old Settlers, Shruthi Kumaresan of Independence, Klyde Park of Homestead, Cohen Reinartz of Morningside and Suhan Sadhu of Independence.

National Math Stars picks students as early as second and third grade and stays with them for ten years, through high school graduation, with mentorship, funding for advanced coursework and invitations to competitions and summer camps. The nonprofit was founded in 2023 and now works with districts in ten states. LISD's elementary gifted and talented administrator, Koby Stringer, called the recognition a reflection of both ability and effort, plus the teachers and families behind it.

Source: Lewisville ISD

Lewisville's daytime outdoor watering restrictions run through the end of September, which puts two weeks on the clock. They are still fully in force until then, and with the lake down about three feet from full pool, this is not the stretch to get sloppy about it.

The rules as they stand: no automated or manual sprinklers between 10 AM and 6 PM. Even-numbered addresses water on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Odd-numbered addresses get Wednesdays and Sundays. Commercial, multifamily and HOA properties are assigned Mondays and Thursdays. Hand-watering with a hose and soaker hoses are not restricted at all, at any hour, because they waste so much less than sprinklers do.

Suspected violations go through the OurLewisvilleTX app or 972.219.3510. That same number handles questions about the city's rebates for water-efficient equipment, including WaterSense weather-based irrigation controllers, and the details sit on the Water Conservation page at cityoflewisville.com.

The practical piece: if your controller is still running the schedule you set back in May, this is a good two weeks to go look at it. The restrictions were enacted under the city's Emergency Water Management Plan, which runs the same May 1 through end of September window every year.

Source: City of Lewisville

The Lewisville Lake Toll Bridge opened on August 1, 2009, a 1.7-mile span that finally let drivers cross the water between Lake Dallas and Lakewood Village instead of going the long way around it. It cost about $122 million and took three years to build, and record rainfall during construction pushed the schedule back.

The North Texas Tollway Authority runs it, four lanes across, and for anyone living on the north end of the lake it turned a wide loop into a short hop. It is one of those pieces of infrastructure that nobody thinks about until they try to imagine the drive without it.

Source: North Texas Tollway Authority

Lewisville Lake was 85.4% full in the September 16 reading from Water Data for Texas, the newest daily figure posted when this issue was built. Average water level was 518.84 feet, about 3.2 feet under the 522-foot conservation pool that counts as a full lake.

The decline stays slow and steady. The lake read 87.0% a week earlier and 92.9% a month earlier, so it has shed roughly seven and a half points since mid-August. This time last year it sat at 93.4%, which is a fair reminder that this has been a drier late summer than the last one. Nothing on the reservoir page flags a flood-pool condition.

There is still plenty of water out there. Ramps, swim areas and Party Cove all work fine at this level. Just remember that three feet down from full means shoreline edges and sandbars ride closer to the surface than they did in June, so give unfamiliar shallows room.

Source: Water Data for Texas

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