Tampa, FL – A Tampa attorney has made history after becoming the first contestant portraying a younger version of Ernest Hemingway to win the annual Hemingway Look-A-Like Contest in Key West.<\/p>\n
Chris Dutton, 39, earned the title during the 45th annual competition held at Sloppy Joe’s Bar as part of the city’s Hemingway Days celebration. <\/p>\n
The event, which attracts contestants from across the country, honors the life and legacy of the Nobel Prize winning author, who lived in Key West during the 1930s.<\/p>\n
Dutton secured the victory after advancing through two preliminary rounds before competing against 23 finalists in the championship round. <\/p>\n
More than 130 contestants entered this year’s event. His win came on his seventh attempt after years of participating in the popular competition.<\/p>\n
Unlike most previous winners, who typically resemble Hemingway during his later years with a full white beard, Dutton modeled his appearance after the author’s younger years while he was living and writing in Key West. <\/p>\n
Contest organizers said contestants portraying a younger Hemingway had previously reached the finals, but none had ever won the competition until this year.<\/p>\n
Judging was conducted by past contest winners, who evaluated participants on their resemblance to Hemingway, personality, stage presence and overall ability to represent the Hemingway Look Alike Society.<\/p>\n
As the 2026 champion, Dutton will join the Hemingway Look Alike Society and help judge future competitions. <\/p>\n
The organization also supports scholarship programs for students in the Florida Keys. <\/p>\n
The annual contest remains one of the signature events of Hemingway Days, celebrating the author’s lasting impact on American literature and the Key West community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tampa, FL – A Tampa attorney has made history after becoming the first contestant portraying a younger version…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[6275,25783,144731,8612,145075,63732,1555,145076,145077,145078,2457,2559,2391,135,137,136],"class_list":["post-355558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-attorney","tag-author","tag-chris-dutton","tag-contest","tag-contestant","tag-ernest-hemingway","tag-event","tag-hemingway-look-alike","tag-hemingway-look-alike-contest","tag-hemingway-look-a-like-contest","tag-history","tag-key-west","tag-man","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}