AMERICAN FORK — There may or may not be something rotten in Denmark, but there certainly is something rotten in American Fork. Don’t worry — they will soon be moving on to the “Hall of Fumes” in Vermont.

The stink culprits are a pair of sneakers, worn by 7-year-old Joshua Boothe of American Fork. He and his shoes captured first place for the smelliest sneakers in America, according to the Odor Eaters Rotten Sneaker Contest, held in March in Vermont.

Boothe agreed the shoes were pretty potent.

“It is so powerful the stench gets on your hands and you have to wash them,” he said.

Along with the odors, the competition at the contest was stiff. The contest was open to kids 5 to 15 years old, some of the worst in the rotten-sneaker department. Each had won at the state level, and seven state winners were picked at random to participate in the national contest. Along with the title, Boothe got a few more rewards for producing the stinkiest shoes. He got gold-colored sneakers on red, white and blue ribbons to hang around his neck. Much better-smelling was a chocolate shoe. And there was a check for $2,500, which he plans to put in the bank for college, and maybe buy an iPod.

“I was the littlest kid, and I won,” Boothe said. “And I beat them all. It was fun.”

He said the others had worse-looking shoes, but his were the smelliest. A panel judged the sneakers on their condition, plus their aroma.

“They judged them on how worn and how stinky they were,” said Boothe’s mom Michaela Boothe. “They told the kids to go ahead and wear their shoes” after the state finals, they just weren’t supposed to abuse them.

Boothe’s participation started with him being a typical young boy.

“It’s because I went to all these places that made my shoes stinky,” he said. “My mom didn’t want me in the house. She found out there was a smelly shoe contest, and she thought I would win.”

So they entered his shoes in the Utah contest at the state fair in September. His shoes were named the worst in the state, and he went on to the national contest in Montpelier, Vt. Contest rules specified the shoes must be “naturally worn and torn.” He was allowed to wear the shoes between the state and national competitions, but he didn’t wear them as much as he could have.

“Joshua didn’t like those shoes after they started stinking,” Michaela Boothe said.

When he decided he’d better get busy to make them even stinkier than they had been during the state competition, he did some natural boy activities.

“I went fishing,” he said. “I stuck them in the mud. I cleaned off the fish and some of the juice got on them. I picked apricots and plums and got to step on the rotten ones.”

Joshua and his dad, Allan, went to the competition in Vermont, while his mom stayed home with Joshua’s three siblings.

The lucky judges of the stinky shoes were George Aldrich, NASA’s “master sniffer” (or, chemical specialist); and Rachel Herz, Ph.D., of the department of psychiatry and human behavior at the Brown University Medical School. Herz said she judged the shoes based on “emotional potency.”

“It is whatever produces the most visceral response,” she said. “Because that is what this is about — to create a really rotten smell it has to be really very emotionally potent.”

“It has that rank, cheesy smell,” Aldrich said. “It’s also very pungent. It goes in your nose and kind of burns. Your eyes begin to water.”

As soon as he won, he and his dad called his mom with the news.

“I didn’t believe he was going to win,” she said. “We only sent him with enough clothes for the time in Vermont. They had to go to New York right after that.”

While on the all-expense paid trip to New York, Joshua appeared on TV news, which he considered one of the best parts of winning.

“I liked being on the news in New York and all over the world,” he said.

He also went to the Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty and took a bus tour of the city. He saw “The Lion King” on Broadway. While in Vermont, he toured the Ben and Jerry ice-cream factory, visited a glass-blowing shop and a cider mill.

When he and his dad boarded the plane, the pilot made a special announcement.

“We have a celebrity on board,” he said, according to Boothe. “Let’s give a round of applause for the winner of the stinky-shoe contest.”

The notoriety did not stop there.

“He was listed on Yahoo,” Michaela Boothe said. “There were 15 pages of places that have mentioned him around the world.”

Because he made it to the finals of the “Rotten Sneaker Contest,” he is not eligible to enter again. His younger brother is considering trying, though. But Boothe has moved on to other things.

“I am doing a Reading Rainbow contest right now,” he said. “I put together a book, ‘Where Can You Go with Stinky Sneakers.’ ” He sent in his contest entry on Friday.