By Ron Wilson, Director of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development at Kansas State University.

Hi honey, I'm bringing some friends home for dinner. How many? Oh, about 5,000 people. Hmm, that sounds like grounds to dump your husband right there. Imagine feeding more than 5,000 people. Today we'll learn about a barbecue specialist who has fed 5,000 people, and he's still serving people across Kansas. It's today's Kansas Profile.

Meet Lorenzo Hurde, Senior, the owner of Lorenzo's Bar-BQ and Catering in Larned.

Lorenzo grew up in rural, far western Kansas - the Mountain Time Zone, in fact. He graduated at Tribune and then moved to Sharon Springs. Sharon Springs is a town of 811 people. Now, that's rural.

Lorenzo worked for the State of Kansas for some 28 years, but it was not always easy. Especially in those early days, Lorenzo faced a great deal of discrimination as an African-American applying for those jobs. After he did catch on, he became a physical plant worker in Larned, went to college at night, and rose to supervisor. 

He later became the chief engineer at the Parsons State Hospital.

But what Lorenzo did for a hobby was to cook – specifically, to barbecue. His family comes from Tennessee originally, and when he would go down to visit he would drop in on barbecue places and pick up some ideas. He brought those back to Kansas and worked at improving his barbecuing skills.

He got so good at it that soon he was barbecuing for church and other local events. Demand increased, but he was still doing it on evenings and weekends. In 1964, he began his own business. 

Eventually he retired from the state to concentrate on barbecue. He says he never stops trying to get better at what he does.

For example, Lorenzo was using store-bought barbecue sauce in his early days, but he was not really satisfied with it. One day in the early 1970s, he invited a bunch of friends over for a party. Lorenzo was cooking the meat, but he found late in the evening that he had no sauce. So he had to improvise. He grabbed some ketchup, vinegar and spices and mixed up some sauce on the spot. His guests raved about it. They said, "This is the best we've ever had." Lorenzo tasted it and said, "This may be just what I was looking for."

So he saved the recipe and it became his personal, original formula for barbecue sauce.

Today, Lorenzo's Bar-BQ and Catering serves products at grocery stores across Kansas and caters special events. At company picnics in southwest Kansas, he has served some 5,500 people at one event, as mentioned at the beginning. He has portable hickory smokers which he can transport to the site.

Currently, Lorenzo is working with 30 stores across Kansas, from Wamego to Hugoton. He will set up his cooker and work with the store's deli or serve as the store's deli while he is there. He offers a menu of barbecue and related products which is one of the largest menus provided by a mobile unit.

The menu includes beef, pork, and hot link sandwiches, bulk meats, chicken, turkey, ham, country style ribs, and sides such as potato salad, cole slaw, and baked beans. Family packs are also available. 

Stores love it when he arrives, because the aroma of that hickory smoke will draw in customers.

What are his keys to success? Lorenzo says, "You've got to be people-oriented and have a sense of pride in what you're doing. If it ain't right, we're not gonna serve it.  And you have to like to cook, to have the patience to take the time it needs."

“We mix our own spices. We make our own sauce. We make our own cole slaw. We make our own baked beans.  And we never stop learnin,'" Lorenzo says.

Hi honey. Don't worry, we'll have Lorenzo Hurde cater our 5,000 friends with his original recipe barbecue. That will get me back in her good graces.

It's great to find this African-American who is using his culinary skills in small-town Kansas. We salute Lorenzo Hurde for making a difference in a barbecue business with rural roots.

For the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development, this is Ron Wilson with Kansas Profile.

------------------------------------------------

The mission of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development is to enhance rural development by helping rural people help themselves. The Kansas Profile radio series and columns are produced with assistance from the K-State Research and Extension Department of Communications News Unit. Audio and text files of Kansas Profiles are available at http://www.kansasprofile.com. For more information about the Huck Boyd Institute, interested persons can visit http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/huckboyd/.