KEY WEST, Florida Keys -- A thick white beard, piercing gaze and admiration for Ernest Hemingway’s life and work helped a 69-year-old Florida man win Key West’s Ernest Hemingway Look-Alike Contest.

The contest was a highlight of the annual Hemingway Days festival that ended Sunday, a day before the 109th anniversary of the legendary author’s birth.

Tom Grizzard of Leesburg bested 141 other look-alike contenders in the competition at Sloppy Joe's Bar, Hemingway's favorite watering hole when he lived in Key West throughout the 1930s. The competition's final round was held late Saturday.

"I relate to his love of the sea and love of people," said Grizzard, an eight-time competitor who wore a cream-colored turtleneck sweater suggesting Hemingway’s garb in an iconic 1957 photo portrait by Yousuf Karsh.

A one-time fishing guide who has fished in Havana’s Hemingway International Billfish Tournament, Grizzard prefers "Islands in the Stream" over Hemingway’s other books. His own writing, he joked, is limited to appraisals for his commercial real estate business.

Look-alike contenders in sportsman's attire paraded across the stage at Sloppy Joe's during preliminary rounds Thursday and Friday before a judging panel of former winners.

Twenty-five prospective "Papas" made it to Saturday's finals including Denis Golden of Rockport, Mass., who pleaded for victory onstage by parodying a song from the musical "Fiddler on the Roof."

Other Hemingway Days events included the Drambuie Key West Marlin Tournament, writers’ readings and a short story competition directed by author and Hemingway granddaughter Lorian Hemingway.

Glenys Osborne of Melbourne, Australia, earned the short story contest’s $1,000 first prize for "How Can I Write Your Story?", chosen from more than 1,110 submissions.

The story recounts the death of a self-destructive musician and his grieving friend's struggle to honor his life in words.

"This is a story of friendship, the kind that is true and honest to the bone," said Lorian Hemingway.

Ernest Hemingway's grandson Edward Hemingway, a writer and illustrator who showcased his new children’s book at the festival, said he thought Hemingway Days would appeal to his late grandfather.

"I imagine my grandfather would get a kick out of the festival,” he said. “The spirit of his life is here in Key West.”

During his 10-year residence on the island, Ernest Hemingway penned literary classics including "For Whom the Bell Tolls," "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" and "To Have and Have Not."

Festival organizers announced July 21-26 as dates for the 2009 festival.