Kathy Gerkin is running out of trophy space.

Pumping her fists and raising her paddle, Gerkin, 60, paddled to yet another first place win Sunday during the 58th annual Bayou Liberty Pirogue races near Slidell.

“I just love to compete,” she said, dripping wet with sweat and water after winning the 40 and over category for the umpteenth time.

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The races, a Slidell area tradition for nearly six decades, brought roughly 100 competitors and on average attracts 2,000 or so guests yearly, organizers said.

Hot dogs, hamburgers, gumbo, T-shirts and beer vendors have launched the event to a destination status with racers coming from as far away as Mississippi and Hahnville to compete.

But by many standards, the races are a local family affair, a brotherhood of bayou lovers who train, prep and build pirogues year round in hopes of clinching a first place trophy.

FAMILY AFFAIR

Gerkin’s mother, Audrey Gibson, knows the family bond first hand.

At 82, she built Gerkin’s pirogue from scratch, sanding out the sides and cutting the seat to fit. Gibson, a champion herself for the latter part of the 50s — or “however long I raced,” she said smiling — introduced her daughter to the sport at 12 years old. Shortly thereafter Gerkin was in her first race where she flipped the boat only to still come in second place.

She was hooked. Her life long love affair had begun.

As racers milled about, some parting the crowd as they carried their pirogues to the Bayou Liberty Boat Launch, Gerkin, her mother and others all seemed to tell a similar story: the races are a family affair.

It’s likely to date back to 1666, when historians believed the first pirogue was devised. Unlike canoes with a deep V-shaped bottom, pirogues boast a flat bottom, which allows them to maneuver in water as shallow as a couple inches, even with a heavy load.

When French settlers arrived in Louisiana, they seemed astonished by the new vessels pioneered by Indian craftsmen.

When raging fractions of French and Indians gathered for battle, it was the Indians who had the upper hand, popping out of woody bayous originally thought too shallow for traditional canoes, according to the Lake Pontchartrain Maritime Basin Museum.

Eventually, settlers who found the pirogue better for hunting and fishing in Louisiana marshlands, started to build their own pirogues. The culture was born. Pirogues were now a part of Louisiana life.

A.L. “Junior” Pichon remembers the history well.

His family lineage traces back to Slidell area bayous to the 1800s where his grandfather and great grandfathers hunted, trapped and crabbed on the meandering waterways, he said. As a boy, his days were constantly filled with pirogue trips. Now, at 74, bayou water seems to course through his veins, he said.

As a young man with an eye toward civic duty, Pichon helped organize the Bayou Liberty Pirogue Races as a fundraiser for nearby St. Genevieve church. He was 17 when he competed in his first race, and like Gerkins, he was hooked.

“It’s part of our heritage,” Pichon said. “It’s what we do.”

Pichon, who later went on to serve as a St. Tammany Parish councilman in the late 50s, has served as chairman and emcee for the races for 25 years. He’s attended all but one race, missing it because of his military service. Now his four sons and two daughters attend yearly. Beth Pichon, one of his daughters, hasn’t missed a race in her life.

“It’s our family,” she said, writing down winners and handing out trophies. “You see people you see only once a year.”

Charlette Corolla agreed.

After dodging bullets and mortars for 10 months in Iraq as a Navy reserve lieutenant, the mother of four returned home last year searching for a piece of mind.

She found it, once again, on the water, in a pirogue. On Sunday, she came in second in the 40 and over category, while her daughter Charlette Bradley, a soon to be eighth-grader at Slidell Junior High School, came in first place in the 8- to 12-year-old category.

Sweating and smiling, Corolla explained why the pirogue races are more than just a race.

“This is part of Louisiana. It’s fun you’re not going to get anywhere else. It’s nice to bring the family together,” she said.

As a child visiting her grandmother on Bayou Liberty, she remembers an old, chipped and decrepit pirogue collecting dust in the back yard.

She was attracted by its craftsmanship and one day hoped to ride it down the bayou.

Then she saw the signs for the Bayou Liberty races. She signed up to compete.

“I got (the pirogue) to where it wouldn’t leak,” she said.

Then she raced.

“I came in second then,” she said, smirking. “But only two people raced.”