Jason and Cherlynn Waite: Smokin' Suckers BBQ, BBQ World Cup Qualifiers

Jason and Cherlynn Waite were not supposed to be here.

They run a porta-potty business in rural Oskaloosa, Iowa, a town of about 11,000, and when a friend first tried to talk them into competition barbecue, Cherlynn flatly said no thanks and suggested they book a vacation instead.

A few years later, that same reluctant couple stood at an awards ceremony in Minnesota, heard their team called for Reserve Grand Champion, and could barely process that a husband-and-wife team from small-town Iowa had just qualified for the BBQ World Cup.

In April of 2027, Smokin' Suckers BBQ will be one of 100 teams from around the world cooking in Las Vegas for $1,000,000.

Their road into the sport ran through real life.

Jason started cooking as a kid, stepping in when he watched his dad get frustrated at the grill, and kept it up through a stint in the military, where he was always the one volunteering to cook for gatherings and retirement parties.

Cherlynn has been in the restaurant world since high school, and once managed a spot in town called the Pepper Tree.

Somewhere along the way Jason bought a cheap electric smoker, possibly at a garage sale, and started throwing whole birds on it before heading to the local watering hole and coming back to a crowd that loved the results.

They have two sons, Cole and Jackson, now grown and fully bought in, always around to load the trailer or help pack up when the weekend is done.

Why the Team Is Called Smokin' Suckers

The team name is the best reveal in the interview, and it works two ways.

By day the Waites are in the portable-toilet business, so, as Jason puts it, they suck a lot of things up during the week and smoke a lot of things on the weekend.

But there is a second layer.

A good friend, Wendell Campbell, runs their hometown charity contest, Barbecue for Badges, which raises money for local first responders, and he all but begged them to enter.

Cherlynn resisted, telling Jason she was not about to pay an entry fee just to have strangers judge her cooking, and that she would only do it if he found someone crazy enough to cover the fee for them.

A few days later he called and told her she had better start practicing, because he had found a sponsor.

They had been suckered in.

Smokin' Suckers it was.

How Smokin' Suckers Went From Backyard Champions to the KCBS Master Series

What followed was a quiet, relentless climb.

The Waites cooked the Iowa Barbecue Society backyard circuit, the local fundraisers all over the state, and they were remarkably good at it, taking the backyard Team of the Year title three straight times.

Over one stretch they grand championed or reserve championed nineteen of the twenty-some contests they entered.

Having conquered that world, they decided in 2025 to step up to the KCBS Master Series, where all four meats count and the competition gets a lot stiffer.

They handled the jump about as well as anyone could, reeling off seventeen top-ten finishes in seventeen contests, and Jason finally cracked the protein everyone calls the hardest, taking a first-place brisket at the King of the Corn contest just twenty miles from home.

How Jason and Cherlynn Waite Qualified for the BBQ World Cup

The qualifier itself was almost too quiet to believe.

At Minnesota in May, early in their season, the Waites turned in what Jason described as a seamless, simple cook, and did not think they had done anything spectacular.

At awards they heard their name called for a fourth-place chicken, and then nothing, no other calls in any category.

So when the top ten came around and the announcer read Smokin' Suckers for Reserve Grand Champion, Jason sat frozen in his chair wondering if there had been a mistake.

One top-ten call, and somehow it was enough to punch a ticket to Las Vegas.

He had tears in his eyes and no words.

It was, by a distance, the best thing the two of them had ever done in barbecue.

The Family Behind Smokin' Suckers BBQ

Cherlynn is the steadying hand in the operation.

Jason runs the cook and the timeline, always itching to change something because he saw where a rival finished last week, and she is the one who tells him they are doing just fine and to stick to the plan.

He learned the hard way that she is usually right.

At a backyard contest called Smoke on the Water in Linville, Iowa, frustrated and convinced the whole day was falling apart, Jason quietly walked off to the parking lot in tears, ready to pack up and go home. Cherlynn came and found him, told him to put his big-boy pants on and go cook, and they ended up grand champions that day with three first-place calls.

The other believer was his mother.

Before Minnesota, Jason told her they could never actually afford the time off to get to Las Vegas even if they qualified.

She told him to go cook and do his best. When he called to say they had made it, she said simply that she always knew he would go, and knew he would win.

His father says a prayer over the team before every contest. And their small community has rallied behind them, still stopping the couple to talk about the qualification, still a little amazed that neighbors of theirs are headed to a world stage.

What the Waites Would Do With $1,000,000

Ask the Waites what they would do with $1,000,000 and they do not describe a shopping list, they describe their family.

They would use it to pull their sons deeper into the sport, to build something the four of them could run together, a side business or a bigger version of Smokin' Suckers with the whole family in it.

That is the thread through everything with these two.

For Jason, the best barbecue in the world is the mediocre plate eaten with the right people around the table, and the win he is proudest of is still the very first Grand Champion trophy they took at Barbecue for Badges, the little hometown contest where the whole thing started and where Cherlynn once celebrated by dumping a bucket of ice over his head.

If they get called to the World Cup stage, Jason figures he will need a bucket of paper towels for the tears, then a lot of high fives, and a walk-out to Back in Black.

Whatever happens under those lights, the couple who got suckered into barbecue will be standing on the biggest stage the sport has ever built.

Sources

Jason and Cherlynn Waite, Road to 1 Million qualifier interview with Shannon Pruitt (BBQ World Cup). BWC Qualified Pitmasters Tracker (Smokin' Suckers, Reserve Grand Champion, Minnesota in May; Iowa). Minnesota in May, 2026, St. Peter, MN, May 8, 2026: Smokin' Suckers second overall, 697.11 points, 77 teams (local qualifier results). Oskaloosa News: Jason and Cherlynn Waite of rural Oskaloosa, Iowa; three straight Iowa Barbecue Society backyard Team of the Year titles; seventeen top-ten finishes in seventeen KCBS Master Series contests; second-place finish at Minnesota in May securing the World Cup spot. Team-name origin, first Grand Champion at Barbecue for Badges, the King of the Corn brisket, and family remembrances from the qualifier interview. Hero photo: Jason Waite, BBQ World Cup pitmaster program.