Pair win tiebreaker, share the top prize in snowfall contest

Snowfall in 2006-07 was a lot like the winter of 2005-06.

In fact, they were exact.

Both winters officially produced 143 inches of snow, as recorded at the county Road Commission’s Suttons Bay garage. Six entrants correctly guessed 143 inches in the Leelanau Enterprise snowfall contest, which ended Saturday..

After a tiebreaker was used, Vincent Zywicki of Cleveland Township and Paul Duemler of Ann Arbor, who has a cottage on Lake Leelanau, shared the top honors. Each will receive $150. Taking third place was former New York state resident Andrew Pfeufer of Lake Leelanau, who will receive $50.

Vincent Zywicki of Cleveland township
holds a snow shovel - which he hopes
to keep in his garage until next winter.

Even the tiebreaker was not enough to decide the logjam between Zywicki, Duemler and four others who correctly guessed 143 inches. The Enterprise also asked contestants to pick the total number of points scored in the 2007 NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship in case a tiebreaker was needed. Florida won the game over Ohio State, 84-75, for a total of 159 points. Zywicki and Duemler were each eight points off, but were the closest to 159 points so they shared the top prize.

It was the second year in a row that a tiebreaker was needed to determine first place.

Zywicki said he won the contest once before and posted a close finish in another year, though he couldn’t recall the dates. A review of past winners shows Zywicki won the contest in 1978 with a guess of 200 inches. The year before, he was fourth.

“This is my third time winning something in this contest,” he said.

Zywicki and his wife moved to Leelanau County in 1977. He worked at Burwood Products in Traverse City, but when the plant was closed, Zywicki was offered a job by Ray Pleva.

“He asked me if I knew anything about cutting meat, which I did,” he said. Zywicki has been working as a meat-cutter at Pleva’s Meats, now owned by Tom Pleva, for the last 19 years.

He ignored his usual method for determining snowfall with his entry.

“I usually go by the woolly caterpillar. They were all brown last fall, so I was going to guess 120 inches. I wanted to guess light,” Zywicki said.

When he learned his wife had guessed 132 inches, Zywicki changed his to 143 inches.

The Zywickis figured she had the best chance of winning the contest this year until a spring storm dumped 15 inches of snow earlier this month, bringing the total up to 138 inches on April 11. Five more inches fell on April 12, which brought the final season total to 143 inches.

“I didn’t think we would get there. I like to go ice fishing and it really didn’t get cold enough for ice until well into January and February,” he said.

For Duemler, there was no scientific method for determining his guess of 143 inches.

“I looked at the snowfall totals over the last 50 years or so, looked at the totals for the last few years, and made a guess,” he said.

Paul Deumler of Ann Arbor, who also owns
a cottage on Lake Leelanau, shared the top
prize in the Leelanau Enterprise snowfall
contest. Both Duemler and Vincent Zywicki
correctly guessed 143 inches of snowfall
for the winter , and also won a tiebreaker.

Duemler is a retired systems manager at Ford Motor Company, where he worked for 30 years. He bought a cottage on Lake Leelanau 20 years ago. He has a year-round home in Ann Arbor, where he lives with a niece, Becki, but his Lake Leelanau cottage is where he likes to be.

“I try and be in my cottage as soon as I can each year. Our cat Peanut likes to explore the property, chasing bugs and walking out on the dock,” Duemler said.

As to how he guessed at the tiebreaker, Duemler said he looked at other college basketball scores and figured 167 points might be close.

“Winning came as a big surprise to me. I was way off the mark going into April. I had only entered the contest once before,” he said.

Pfeufer is a self-described snow junkie. His 143-inch guess was far less than his first entry two years ago when he gambled with an 183-inch projection.

“I’m from northern New York. We moved here two years ago and everyone warned me about these rugged northern Michigan winters. I haven’t seen one yet,” he said.

The Pfeufers moved from Stone Ridge, N.Y., after living there almost 20 years. “My wife is from Manistee and I told her I would bring her back to Michigan someday,” Pfeufer said.

The couple owns and runs the Field of Flowers Farm on French Road in Leland Township.

“I love snow, I like to snowshoe, ski. We have a tractor with a big snowblower and I really haven’t had a chance to put it through its paces. I’d like to see the kind of snow like they get in Buffalo, where it can snow up to four feet in a few hours,” Pfeufer said.