Chefs Are Warm, Sauce Is Hot in Texas Goat Cook-Off

--Engulfed in a haze of hickory smoke, 125 cooks slaved in 102-degree heat to get each other’s goat in the 12th Annual World Championship Barbeque Goat Cook-Off in Brady, Tex. “There’s a goat war out there,” said Judge Bob (Tumbleweed Smith) Lewis, pointing to the smoky Richards Park campgrounds, where 10,000 persons thronged to sample the barbecue and participate in tobacco-spitting, egg-tossing and chicken-catching contests. Before chefs Ronnie Horton and Richard Jackson of Llano were declared the winners, other teams shared their secrets: “Three years ago, we accidentally dropped a whole box of lemon pepper into the barbecue sauce,” said Ray Inman of Arlington. “We won third place.” Loma Taylor of Menard recommended a touch of ashes and a few goat hairs for a final flavor burnish. Georgan Healter’s crew--The Red Light District--featured cooks sporting strapless gowns and feathered mules. “Low-cut dreses and a secret sauce will win it,” she forecast badly.

--A granddaughter of the dissident Soviet physicist Andrei D. Sakharov has been admitted to Moscow University to study physics, a Soviet source who asked not to be identified reported in Moscow. The young woman, Marina A. Liberman, received postcards of congratulation from Sakharov and his wife, Yelena Bonner, who are both in internal exile in the city of Gorky, the source said. Marina’s mother, Tatiana, is the older of Sakharov’s two daughters from his first marriage.

--Country music star Roy Acuff, 81, said he went up to a spot on a hill where he could watch the doings below in the Opryland theme park outside of Nashville. “I went up there with my lawn chair and sat in it,” he said. “But I didn’t stop at sitting down. I fell over backwards and hit my head on a water spigot.” Doctors took eight stitches to sew him up.

--Alf Landon, the George Burns of the Republican Party, celebrates his 98th birthday Sept. 9 and will get a visit from Vice President George Bush. Elder statesman Landon, whose presidential hopes were crushed in the 1936 Franklin D. Roosevelt landslide, is a bit frail but still enjoys football, despite the recent lackluster seasons of his alma mater, the University of Kansas. “I watch football, but I haven’t had very damn much to cheer about lately,” he said while sitting on the porch of his Topeka home.