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A 63-year-old Georgia man has won the Hemingway Look-Alike Contest, a highlight of Key West's annual Hemingway Days salute to author Ernest Hemingway that wrapped up on Sunday.
Zach Taylor, an electrical and plumbing supply company owner from Ambrose, beat over 130 other entrants in the final round of the contest.
He likened the look-alike contest to a “family reunion” and said it was especially meaningful since his late father-in-law Carlie Coley won in 2000.
The event was scrapped last year due to the pandemic.
Look-Alike Contest entrants were judged by past winners at Sloppy Joe's Bar, a watering hole frequented by Hemingway, as they paraded onstage and took turns attempting to prove that they best represented the author who adopted the nickname “Papa.”
“You know, everybody has read ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ and things like that, that he wrote, but coming down here, you start to see bits and pieces of a man you knew nothing about,” said Taylor after his win was announced. “I think Papa would be proud of what’s been accomplished in his name in a town he loved so well.”