Cardis said he began blowing the marine mollusk shell about 10 years ago during a family visit to Key West, adapting techniques he learned playing the trumpet as a child.“You sort of have to just buzz your lips when you’re blowing into it,” Cardis said. “You have to make a ‘pffft’ noise with your lips in order to generate the sound.”Whiteley said she plays the shell at her riverside home to celebrate sunsets.Judges evaluated entrants ranging from children to seniors on the quality, novelty, duration and loudness of sounds they produced.Other winners included Michael and Georgann Wachter, a couple from Avon Lake, Ohio, who performed a conch-shell-and-vocal duet parodying Elvis Presley’s “Hound Dog” that drew cheers and laughter from spectators
The conch shell, an enduring symbol of the Florida Keys, has been used as a maritime signaling device in the region for more than two centuries. The island chain is nicknamed the Conch Republic.The contest was conceived by the Old Island Restoration Foundation in 1972 and took place in the garden of Key West’s Oldest House Museum.
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