Brighton Festival Brings Local Charity Grill Team Together For Final Barbecue

About a year and a half ago, after a lot of random volunteer work at various events, Joseph "Pit Boss" Peardon, Thomas Archer, Jason Conrad Huntley and Robert Legowsky decided to form a charity grill team and call themselves the Meatloafers.

Since forming, the men have cooked at several picnics and fundraisers.

"These guys are really good cooks and I'm a really good gofer," Huntley said. "Well, I'm not a good gofer, but whatever, they let me tag along anyways."

Their first group event was the Smokin' Jazz and Barbecue Blues Festival in downtown Brighton last year. Since it was their first event, it seems fitting that it will also be the last with all four original Meatloafers.

In the past year, cancer has struck the lives of three of the four team members, just months apart.

The first blow hit when Peardon, 51, was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer about eight months ago. His doctors gave him about 12 months left to live.

Then about six months ago, Meatloafer Archer's father was also diagnosed with stage four cancer and also given a year to live by his doctors.

Lastly, Huntley's mother was diagnosed with leukemia about four months ago.

"We kind of decided this was going to be the last one because Joe might not make it to the next one," Huntley said. "We hope he does make it. Those of us who are still around are still going to continue. But this is Joe's thing. He's the one who welded the barbecue together, who has been doing this since he was a kid and does it for his 100 family members."

The 6th Annual Smokin' Jazz & Barbecue Blues Festival runs Friday and Saturday in downtown Brighton and is the city's biggest event of the year, according to Becca Boss, the Greater Brighton Area Chamber of Commerce director of events.

"It just keeps getting bigger and bigger," Boss said. "Depending on if we get good weather on both days, we could pull in up to 30,000 people."

Boss said there will be about 12 barbecue stands as well as about 20 other food vendors. The barbecuers come from all over the place, some in the area and some not, she said.

"There are more barbecuers than last year," Boss said.

While the money raised by the event goes to support the Chamber, each vendor charges for its own food.

Because of everything that has happened in the past year, the Meatloafers decided to donate 100 percent of their profits from the weekend to the Huntsman Cancer Institute.

"I started looking around and I wanted to find a charity that 100 percent would go right into research. I wanted an organization that had already proven itself a little bit. We found the Huntsman Cancer Institute out part of the University of Utah and that they had found more genetic links to cancer than any other organization."

Huntley said he hopes people will drop on by and help them support their cause this weekend.