First Place (Biggest Liar) - Adam Booth, Shepherdstown
"Beauty Contest"
A buddy of mine is a rural community events planner, and he and his team just recently constructed a new community events building in southern West Virginia. They had a big grand opening ceremony, and he called me to be a part of it.
He asked me would I like to judge a beauty pageant in Wayne County. And I thought about it, and I said, “Yes, indeed I did want to judge a beauty pageant in Wayne County.” And he said, “Great! Go south of Wayne, about 20 or 25 minutes down 152.”
Now, if you’re from around there, like I am, you know that 20 or 25 minutes south of Wayne – that ain’t out Wayne, that’s wa-a-ay out Wayne. So I went wa-a-ay out Wayne down 152 to the community center.
It was a pretty little building, a few cars out in the parking lot, and there was a banner over the door that answered one very important question that I should have asked before I agreed to be a judge.
It said, “The First Annual Lower Wayne County Over-80 Beauty Pageant and Hot Dog Sale.” I was gawking at the banner when my buddy came out, and I said, “Over 80?” And he said, “Ain’t it great!” And he pulled me on in.
Now, they had divided the inside of the community center in half with one of those accordion dividers, because also happening that day on the other side of the building, the 4-H was having a goat judging competition.
Over on this side where the beauty pageant was, they had set out chairs. And eight or nine people had shown up to watch. There were three judges – myself, my buddy, and a representative from the governor’s office who “regretted that he could not be there in person” to judge the First Annual Lower Wayne County Over-80 Beauty Pageant and Hot Dog Sale.
We waited for the competitors. Slowly three beauties came in. There was Mabel A. Adkins, Dottie Ferguson Adkins, and Letha Adkins Ferguson – none of whom were related to each other. And we waited and waited for more competitors. My buddy went over to the other side to see if maybe people had gone to the wrong side of the building.
Before I knew it, he was pulling that divider back because only three goats had shown up for the 4-H competition, and he had made an executive decision to combine the two competitions so that the over-80 beauties and the goats were now competing against each other. They would alternate rounds of competition from one side to the other.
So the first round of competition was the general beauty competition. And the over-80 beauties came down the catwalk. They had made themselves up. They had pretty dresses and pretty make-up on with great southern West Virginia beauty queen hairstyles that I can only describe as the Cement Mixer, the Bundt Pan, and the Mushroom Cloud.
Following them, the goats came down. But they all received low scores, because they had all chosen to wear a beard to a beauty competition.
After the first round, Bundt Pan was in first place. Second place was a breeding goat, and third place was a tie between a meat goat and Mushroom Cloud. We went on to the second round of competition, which came from the 4-H side. This was the milking competition.
The goats came down the catwalk and a pail was placed under each one. See, it was the first competitor to fill their pail who would win the competition. Bundt Pan, Cement Mixer, and Mushroom Cloud looked at each other, they nodded, and they went up on the catwalk and took a stool next to each one of the goats. They decided it would be a team competition, and they began milking those goats. The team that won was meat goat and Mushroom Cloud, and that just boosted them right up to the top of the competition.
The third round was back on the beauty pageant side, and that was the talent competition. That was really great. The judges were really impressed because there was a recitation of the preamble, one of them played the fiddle, a goat tap danced a little bit, and one of the beauties came forth and she was singing her favorite song, “...down upon the Swanee River...”
Right as she got to that high note, her mouth was so wide open that her teeth fell out on the floor. And a goat, thinking it was a can, came over and gobbled them up and kept going like this as she sang, and it turned into a really great ventriloquism act that just pushed that meat goat all the way up to first place.
Now there were several more rounds of competition, but by this point, Bundt Pan was so far in the back that she bowed out of the competition. Two of the goats, they had decided that this wasn’t their thing anymore, and they were eating hot dogs in the back row. And poor old Cement Mixer had fallen asleep.
So it was in a dead heat between the meat goat and Mushroom Cloud. Then came the final round of competition – the interview. The question was, “If you are the crowned the First Annual Miss Over-80 Lower Wayne County, what would you do to fight hunger?”
Mushroom Cloud stepped right up and answered without even thinking, “I would bake more cookies.” So pleasant. And they passed the microphone to the meat goat, and the meat goat gave another great answer, “Mehhh...ma-aa-hh,” which put all of us judges into a big deliberation.
We thought about it and argued for a while, and then finally we decided that Mushroom Cloud had come up with the better answer. So we crowned her the First Annual… . This is when Cement Mixer woke up.
And she looked, and she stood up, and she said, “Wait a minute! She’s 79!” Mushroom Cloud was so confused and distraught, she said, “It’s true. I’m only 79.” Which meant that, by default, meat goat won the First Annual Lower Wayne County Over-80 Beauty Pageant.
By agreeing to be a judge, I didn’t know that I had also agreed to take the winner out on a date. Everyone thought the joke was on me, but really the joke was on the goat, because Mushroom Cloud had actually won the goat from the 4-H raffle to serve at her restaurant, which is where my date was.
So, that is how I won a date with the prettiest old goat in Wayne County, and boy she sure tasted good!
You can read the rest of this article in this issue of Goldenseal, available in bookstores, libraries or direct from Goldenseal.
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