CHICAGO – Miguel Torres of Chicago won the Mr. Chicago Leather 2014 title at Chicago’s Touché on January 25 in front of a capacity crowd.
Miguel was picked out of a field of six contestants and was definitely the crowd favorite. The contest had the biggest crowd in years, with a big turn out from both the area, across the nation and internationally.The bar was literally at capacity with a line going down the block to get in during the contest, despite 7 degree weather.
IML 2003 John Pendal was again the emcee of the contest and the judges were Mr. Midwest Leather 2013 Matt Hengle, Mr. Midwest Rubber 2013 Jesse Driscoll, Ms. Christina Court and Nick Zuko, Mr. Chicago Leather 2013.
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David Boyer, manager of Touché, also announced this year’s winner of the Chuck Windemuth Mentor Award. The award is in honor of Chuck Windemuth, the first Mr. Chicago Leather who was also active in mentoring new people in the leather community and working to keep the Chicago leather community working together. This year’s winner was Jeff Willoughby, Mr. Chicago Leather 2005 and a longtime supporter and fundraiser for the local community. Jeff is also the director of the Leather Hall of Fame, which has it’s induction ceremony every year at CLAW.
There were also some activity between the bar wear, leather image and jock strap portions. There was the ever popular sexual position contest which had a twist with a straight(ish) couple going against a gay couple. The straight couple won, 10 1/2 to 10, but in fairness, one member of the gay couple did have a cast on his arm. Andy Cross was also up on stage reading off situations and the audience had to guess true and false. Evidently, Woody Woodruff has set a standard that IMLs are expected to sing at events now.
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Friday night was the meet and greet and roast of Nick Zuko. Mr. Santa Clara County Leather 2013 Thib Guicherd-Callin hosted the roast and, despite some saying he was too nice, spared no one in teasing Nick of his exploits in the past year. He even reminded Nick of a certain Jacob Riley at TitanMedia, complete with PG-13 reenactment on stage. Thib was helped out by Mr. Minneapolis Eagle 2013 Ryan Brown, NYC Eagle 2013 Arsenio Amadis, IML Coordinator Jon Krogaard, Illinois LeatherSir 2013 Jeffery Woods and GLD publisher Ruff Estes.
Miguel will represent Chicago at International Mr. Leather in Chicago this May.
