Spitting Image
In an outdoor area next to a strip of pavement, children and their parents eat watermelon slices and save the seeds in their mouths, spitting down the length of the pavement in a competition to see who can spit a seed the farthest.
Wednesday is the only day of the fair for this contest, and the seven-year-old Christian Merrick enjoys the watermelon-eating aspect of the competition, he said.
Both he and his mother, Natasha, live in Franklin. Natasha joined in on the action, and cleared 27 feet in her strongest attempt. Aubrey Bush, a Johnson County Farm Bureau Young Farmers leader, was there to oversee the contest, which is one-of-a-kind, she said.
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“I’ve never seen a watermelon seed spitting contest,” Bush said. “We have adults signed up to do the open class; a lot of parents of kids are participating.”
Franklin Gospel Band returns to fair
For more than three decades, a Franklin native and his brother have been performing in the Gospel band they formed.
Al Wiggington formed the Christian-music band, Witness, with his brother, Stacy, in 1988.
The band now includes tenor Sam Hinkle and bassist Dan Sink. Through the decades, the band has played in several states, going as far as North Carolina. They mostly play in churches, but also visit fairs, schools and festivals, Wiggington said.
The band was scheduled to sing at the Artcraft Theatre for its 20th anniversary in 2008 when the flood happened, and the show got pushed back to August, he said.
The band has made a trip to the fair each of the past three years, and has been playing at the fair on and off for the last 20. They enjoy the atmosphere of the tent they play in, Wiggington said.
“People can come and go,” Wiggington said. “Maybe one song we’re signing entices them and the next one they can go. People can hear the message of the song, and maybe this is as close as they get to a church.”
