CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Pardon me, boy, but you bit off more than you can chew-chew.
This Appalachian valley burg, Port Angeles’ rival in Outside magazine’s Best Town Ever contest, didn’t reckon with restaurateur Jacob Oppelt.
Co-owner of the Next Door Gastropub, 113 W. First St. in Port Angeles, Oppelt, 31, has taken the fight for bragging rights to the enemy camp in Tennessee.
On Monday night, he said he persuaded a bar full of Chattanoogans — Chattanoogies? — to vote for Port Angeles in the online contest that pits the Southern city of more than 170,000 people against the Clallam County seat of 19,000 folks.
Port Angeles already has bested Santa Barbara, Calif.; Bainbridge Island; Glenwood Springs, Colo.; Flagstaff, Ariz., and Bar Harbor, Maine in online voting for the American town with the best outdoor attractions.
Meanwhile, well-known vacation spots like Hilo, Hawaii; Lake Placid, N.Y.; and Santa Fe, N.M., fell in other matches in the NCAA-bracket-style competition.
Oppelt assembled a video of aerial and land-based scenes of Port Angeles and its environs with the help of Jeff Well of Rite Bros. Aviation and posted it to YouTube and Facebook.
Titled “A Day in Port Angeles” and featuring scenes of kayaking and hiking, the video “went totally lateral” across the nation, with 125,000 views by Tuesday morning, Oppelt said.
Oppelt’s next step was to seek money from the GoFundMe money-raising website, which together with local contributors Irwin Dental Clinic, Olympic Veterinary Clinic and Bagley Place Storage raised airfare for him and his business partner, Justin Tognoni.
Well flew them to Boeing Field in Seattle. After a short hop to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and an all-night flight, they started touring Chattanooga and filming a video of that city Monday.
Oppelt said he’ll probably post it to the Internet before the Best Town Ever contest ends at 8:59 p.m. Thursday — but not soon enough to endanger Port Angeles’ chances of winning.
When he showed his scenes of the North Olympic Peninsula to a pub of Tennesseans — Tennesseeyas? — they all cast votes for Port Angeles, he said.
Still, as of midafternoon Tuesday, Chattanooga was leading the race with 44,900 votes to Port Angeles’ 41,812, or roughly 52 percent to 48 percent of the nearly 87,000 ballots cast.
People can vote once per device, be it a computer or a smartphone.
“I feel we’ve already won, getting to where we’re at,” Oppelt told the Peninsula Daily News from Chattanooga, where representatives of that town’s visitor bureau were about to take him hang-gliding.
He’d already been kayaking and rock climbing.
“I’m a little tired right now, but I’m good,” he said.
Oppelt and Tognini appeared on one sports radio call-in show Monday and have another appearance booked for today.
“It’s awesome down here,” Oppelt said of his Tennessee hosts. “They’ve been extremely hospitable and welcoming.”
But the Port Angeles-born Oppelt said he was “absolutely” a homer.
“This is an attempt to level the playing field,” he said of Chattanooga’s nearly 9:1 population advantage over Port Angeles.
Meanwhile, Seattle television stations KIRO, KOMO and Q13 planned to weigh in on Port Angeles’ side, and sister-city Canadians in Victoria were casting votes, Oppelt said.
Washington’s senators, Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, and Congressman Derek Kilmer urged their Twitter followers to back Port Angeles.
On both sides of the contest, Washingtonians and Tennesseans were posting scores of photos of Northwest and Southern panoramas.
Port Angeles’ splendors are more splendid, Oppelt said.
He said he couldn’t estimate how much his trip had cost except that his GoFundMe plea quickly reached its goal of $2,000.
Whatever the outlay, it will be worth it in marketing value, with a splashy spread in Outside going to the winner.
Winning is worth “an estimated $300,000 in advertising value,” said Ryan Malane, marketing vice president for the owner of the MV Coho ferry, which travels daily between Port Angeles and Victoria.
“We might have a shot at winning this against this giant town,” Oppelt said.
“This is an awesome town down here, but you can’t beat the Pacific Northwest, and there’s no place like Port Angeles.
“Just get online and vote, please.”
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Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com.
