Deborah Pratt is a world champion oyster chucker. Her parents met through an oyster house where they worked, and now Deborah and her sister Clementine Macon Boyd are both champion oyster shuckers. They grew up in Virginia learning to shuck, and now have both won the Virginia Oyster Shucking Competition, and the National Oyster Shucking Championship which takes place in Maryland. She often goes head to head against her sister -they have been fiercely battling it out in the past six rounds of shucking on the Virginia Folklife Stage, a part of the Richmond Folk Festival, with Deborah winning three and Clementine winning three rounds. In 2014, Deborah was the first women to win the annual Seafood Expo North America competition. She was facing against multiple winners of the competition, and says she was extremely nervous until her granddaughter called and wished her luck. She won the contest, sucking 12 oysters in 1 minute and 30 seconds. She was especially commended for having the best presentation, as there are lots of penalties that add time for shucking with less care. She enjoys teaching children how to open oysters, with the hopes that they can be famous too. Even as a champion, Deborah expresses lots of gratitude for her life, commenting how she would have never thought something as small as oysters could bring her around the world.
Resources:
https://www.richmondfolkfestival.org/folklife-demos/2018/9/3/deborah-pratt-and-clementine-macon-boyd
https://www.seafoodsource.com/news/supply-trade/out-shucking-the-guys
