The 78th Annual Celebration concluded with the crowning of Honors and Larry Edwards as the World Grand Champions.  Honors was the unanimous selection of the judging panel of Chris Bobo, Nathan Clark, Ray Gilmer, Sam Sorrell and Leigh Stuart.

In total, the panel presided over 203 classes and tied the winner unanimously 67 times.  In comparison, the 2015 judging panel tied the winner unanimously 91 times and in 2014 the panel had 83 unanimous ties.  The 2016 panel also crowned one world champion with the entry receiving no first place ties.

In addition to the unanimous ties, the 2016 panel also crowned 45 champions with the entry receiving 4 first place ties.  In total, 55% of the champions at this year’s show received at least 4 first place ties.  In 2015, 39 champions received four first place ties and in 2014 that number was 56.

The Celebration uses the Olympic High-Low system where each entry’s high and low tie are dropped and the remaining three ties make up the entry’s point total.  Individually the judges placed the eventual winner first on their card in the following percentages:

Nathan Clark - 160 - 78.8%
Ray Gilmer - 149 - 73.3%
Sam Sorrel - 144 - 70.9%
Chris Bobo - 142 - 70%
Leigh Stuart - 140 - 69%