KEY WEST, Fla. - A white-bearded insurance agent from Florida won the Ernest Hemingway Look-Alike Contest, a highlight of the annual festival honoring the famed writer.

Larry Austin, of Palm Harbor, defeated 122 other contenders in the competition at Sloppy Joe’s Bar, Hemingway’s favorite watering hole when he lived here in the 1930s. The competition’s final round was held late Saturday, the 108th anniversary of Hemingway’s birth.

Austin said he shares Hemingway’s fondness for Key West, cats and having a good time, though he has never attempted any writing - except insurance policies.

“When they called my name, I was in shock,” said Austin, a 10-year veteran contestant who said his favorite Hemingway novel is “The Old Man and the Sea.”

Contestants dressed in sportsman’s attire paraded across the stage at Sloppy Joe’s during preliminary rounds Thursday and Friday before a judging panel of former winners. Twenty-five prospective “Papas” made it to Saturday night’s finals.

Ernest Hemingway’s granddaughter Lorian Hemingway, an author who directs a short story competition in the festival, said the contest would appeal to her late grandfather.

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