Best Apple Pie Contest The contest will be from noon to 3 p.m. Nov. 8 at The Drury Inn & Suites, 10393 Reed St., Westminster. Bakers can enter in three categories: • Children (ages 8 to 15), entry fee is $15. • Amateur, fee is $25 • Professional, fee is $35. General admission tickets are $10; 80 tickets are available. All proceeds go to the Broomfield Community Foundation. For more information to enter or to purchase tickets, go to BestApplePieContest.com or find it on Facebook at facebook.com/bestapplepiecontest.

In 2013, Marilyn Paige put a up few fliers for an apple pie competition at her home. She had just moved to Colorado and knew no one. To her surprise, 12 pies showed up at the “beta test” competition in her living room, so she said, “alright, Denver is ready for an apple pie contest.”

Now she’s turning her tasty competition into an event that can please not only tummies, but hearts and minds, too.

Nov. 8, bakers will ply their pies in the Best Apple Pie Contest to benefit the Broomfield Community Foundation.

Paige started the competitions in 2006 in Philadelphia.

“I started it in my living room, because I was tired of looking for good apple pie,” Paige said. “I wanted good pie, but I have no interest in making pie.”

Paige found what she was looking for.

“You will never in your life get better apple pie than at this contest,” she said. “I don’t eat apple pie the rest of the year. Everything else is a disappointment.”

She connected with the Community Foundation, talking with Executive Director Karen Smith and various board members at community and Chamber of Commerce events. When she pitched the contest with the foundation as its nonprofit beneficiary, all were sweet on the idea.

“I think its a cool, unique idea; something different,” said Smith, adding both she and the board are beyond appreciative of Paige choosing the foundation as the recipient of proceeds.

For the Nov. 8 contest, 80 lucky people can join in the tasting. That’s how many general admission tickets will be sold for the event, which will feature three divisions for bakers — children, amateur and professional. Attendees will pick a people’s choice winner in the pie contest, and a panel of judges will pick the division winners.

The panel of judges will include Broomfield Mayor Randy Ahrens; Kini Christie, owner of My Mom’s Pies in Niwot; actor Markus Flanagan, whose credits include a slate of TV shows such as “CSI,” “Friends,” “Northern Exposure” and “Melrose Place;” Bo Jaxon, the drive time DJ on Mix 100.3 FM, and chef Darin Sturgill from Kachina Southwestern Grill in Westminster.

Among the criteria for pies is that all must be homemade — not even canned apples are allowed — and all must have at least three-quarters apple filling (no hiding behind that homemade crust).

Among those who will be baking for the contest is Vilate Winfrey.

Vilate, who just turned 13, in entering in the professional division. She qualifies for both.

She’s a only a teen, but she also is a longtime baker who sells her baked goods at the Westminster Farmers’ Market, which is held summer Saturdays at the former mall site at 88th Avenue and Sheridan Boulevard.

Although she has been baking for longer than she can remember, Vilate only began baking goods to sell when she accidentally knocked her dad’s tablet off of a stack of mail. Her parents had her find a way to pay to fix it. As an 11-year-old, she started selling baked goods at local garage sales, and eventually, the farmers’ market.

She paid to fix the tablet, and now puts the money she earns into a savings account for college.

Her goal is to win the competition and continue baking professionally.

“When people ask me what I want to do, I like to tell them I want to go to culinary school,” she said.