The 54th annual Sand Castle and Sand Sculpture Contest held June 11 at Crown Memorial Beach featured a vast array of original works that showed off the participants' architectural and creative abilities. The Alameda Recreation and Parks Department (ARPD), which hosts the event, reported 220 people participated with 21 sandcastle entries and 31 sand sculpture entries. Participants traveled from all over the Bay Area to compete in the event.

The competition was divided into age and family categories. Judges named their overall favorite sandcastle and sand sculpture “Best in Show,” and ranked the top three entries from each category. The top three submissions received ribbons for their efforts.

Best in Show
The Gutierrez family of Oakland and Alameda won the Best in Show ribbon in the sandcastle competition. They also won the award in 2019, the last time ARPD held the event — the event was canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The team of Sandy and Fred of Concord won the Best in Show award in the sand sculpture competition with their sculpture titled Castle/Glass.

Sandcastle Division
First place in the 12-and-under category went to Jack of Alameda, second went to The Pickachew of Alameda and third place went to Cub Scouts1076 of Alameda. First place in the 13-and-over category went to Urban Gorillas of Oakland, second went to The Model Group of Oakland and third place went to Nimrod Army of Alameda. First place in the family category went to the Gutierrez family (Best in Show), second to the Dawson family of Concord and third place went to the Stella Bora family of Walnut Creek.

Sand Sculpture Division
First place in the 12-and-under category went to Florencia of Dresden for the “Sea Turtle” sculpture, second place went to Kimel Green of Alameda for Green’s “Starfish” sculpture and third place went to Lana of Alameda for a sculpture depicting a city. First place in the 13-and-over category went to Sandy and Fred (Best in Show), second place went to the Gage Pils of Alameda for the “Ice Cream Sandae” sculpture and third place went to USS Hornet of Alameda for the “Automobile Hudson” sculpture. First place in the family category went to the Burgess family of Alameda for the “Giant Gnome” sculpture, second went to the Castro Family of Alameda and Petaluma for the “Octopus Sea Life” sculpture and third place went to the Fisher family of Alameda for their unnamed sculpture.