Bushy-bearded lawyer Jon Avuil has been named the winner of the 2022 edition of Key West in Florida’s Ernest Hemingway lookalike competition. The island city, where the legendary author lived and wrote for most of the 1930s, celebrates his legacy each year with its Hemingway Days event, which concluded on Sunday (24July2022). Competing for his eighth time in the contest, the 65-year-old real estate attorney from Dade City triumphed over 124 other entrants following two preliminary rounds and Saturday night’s finals. “I think I feel most like Hemingway because of his relationship with his friends, his wife and his children,” said Auvil after his victory. “I feel very, very rich right now.” Outlining his admiration for the writer, who died in 1961 having also lived in Cuba and Idaho, Avuil added: "Of course, every man wants to write like Hemingway. He represents a lot — romance, masculinity, sports, love of the sea, love of a woman, love of children … life.” In addition to his hirsute appearance, Auvil shares other traits with the For Whom the Bell Tolls author including a love of fishing. He has even tried his hand at writing fiction and a bit of nonfiction. Before crowning the winner, crowds of spectators cheered enthusiastically for their favourites as the entrants were judged by past winners at Sloppy Joe's Bar, the Key West saloon where Hemingway and his cohorts frequently gathered. Although entries could take on any guise from Hemingway’s life, most sought to emulate his later-years “Papa” persona, donning full beards and sportsman’s attire. Some also performed song parodies pleading to be named the winner - with one finalist even playing a harmonica. Key West’s Hemingway Days events salutes the vigorous lifestyle and literary legacy of the Nobel Prize-winning author, who wrote enduring classics including For Whom the Bell Tolls and To Have and Have Not while living in the city. Festival events included an offbeat "Running of the Bulls," the three-day Key West Marlin Tournament and the conclusion of the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition directed by Ernest’s author granddaughter Lorian. Ernest Hemingway House, which was inhabited by the novelist and his then wife Pauline Marie Pfeiffer from 1931 to 1939, is now a tourist attraction in Key West and U.S. Historic Landmark.