RIPON – Ken Douglas’s strategy at the watermelon-eating contest was quite simple.

“Take a deep breath and just inhale,” said the winner of the National Night Out competition held at the Ripon Community Center.

Douglas beat out the field of 18, consuming most of the red stuff without use of his hands. Those were the only rules for those taking part. They also had to be age 12 and up.

All competitors received coupons good for a free soft serve ice cream from Baskin-Robins. Douglas, for his effort, took home the $25 gift card to Save Mart.

Before that, Ripon police Chief Ed Ormonde defeated his emergency 9-1-1 supervisor Linda Johnston in a one-on-one watermelon-eating contest.

“While it was just for fun, Linda’s also very competitive,” said Ormonde, who would have worn a ‘Linda is the Best’ shirt had he lost.

Instead, she had to sport the ‘I Lost to Ed’ shirt during the duration of National Night Out.

The Ripon community event also featured an eight-team maximum bucket brigade, Tug ‘O War, potato-sack races, and karaoke.

Local police, fire fighters and hundreds of volunteers and donors made possible Ripon’s National Night Out.

The objective was to heighten crime and drug prevention awareness, generate support and participation in anti-crime programs, promote neighborhood spirit along with police-community partnerships, and send a message to criminals that neighborhoods are organized and fighting back.

National Night Out offered plenty of free food.

Carlos Kaufman started cooking up the free hot dogs at about 1 p.m.

“I finally finished late this afternoon,” said Kaufman, who was one of 60 volunteers from Calvary Reform Church.

By then, he had cooked up 3,700 hot dogs for the community and 300 for the volunteers. All items including the cases of bottled water were made possible via donations.

The same goes for the watermelon.

According to Aaron Van Groningen, his family farm – Van Groningen & Sons – made a sizeable contribution of 50 Thompson seedless watermelons.

“We also furnished the ones for the watermelon-eating contest,” he said.

In addition, National Night Out in Ripon included dance demonstrations from Dancers’ Inc., martial arts by Schaffer’s Tae Kwon Do, a classic car show, inflatable bounce houses and slides, Bingo, balloon animals, face painting and free popcorn and cotton candy.