Cather­ine Copeland

Nine parang bands vied for first place in the parang com­pe­ti­tion fi­nals, held at Sweet Lime in La Ro­main, on De­cem­ber 18, but it was San­couche who stole the spot­light. The Point Fortin band sang their way to the top with such songs as their orig­i­nal com­po­si­tion Va­mos a Bele­mas as well as Gav­il­am and won $10,000, and a Carib ham­per. Man­ag­er for the group Dar­ren Dy­er said, "We don't nor­mal­ly en­ter com­pe­ti­tions but we were asked re­peat­ed­ly by Sweet Lime, so we en­tered our first com­pe­ti­tion ever."

Dy­er added, "We know we are good so it was not en­tire­ly a sur­prise that we won, but since the win­ners were cho­sen by the au­di­ence we would like to thank all our sup­port­ers for com­ing out and sup­port­ing us so strong­ly. We have a good band but the vot­ing could have gone ei­ther way." En­ter­tain­ment co-or­di­na­tor for Sweet Lime, Aleah Dass, said it was the first time they had held such a com­pe­ti­tion and since it got such a won­der­ful re­sponse they would most like­ly hold an­oth­er com­pe­ti­tion next year.

Dass stat­ed, "We had at least 300 peo­ple here that night. The first leg of the com­pe­ti­tion was held on No­vem­ber 23 and con­tin­ued un­til De­cem­ber 5. The win­ners of the pre­lim­i­nar­ies com­pet­ed against each oth­er on De­cem­ber 12 and 13, end­ing with the fi­nals on De­cem­ber 18." The sec­ond-place win­ner, Ar Mo­nias Devinir, re­ceived $4000 and a Carib ham­per, while third-place win­ner, Sal­sa Pi­cante, re­ceived a ham­per, al­so cour­tesy Carib.