Down-home affair

MARBLE HILL, Mo. -- Rebecca Throgmorton grew up like many Bollinger County children -- on a country farm, where chasing down and catching a porker is as familiar as video games are to her more urbanite counterparts.

So it really wasn't that much different for the 15-year-old to chase down a piglet in front of a crowd.

"It was just my first time in public," Throgmorton said, holding up a blue first-place ribbon. She had just become the first of the day's contestants to bring a greased-down piglet into captivity at the Bollinger County Fall Festival and Heritage Days on Saturday. The piglet, of course, protested, kicking and screaming.

"But it was the same way it was at home."

At home the pigs aren't greased up, though.

Events like the greased pig competition, a traveling lumberjack show, tractor pulls, duck races and bluegrass and country music concerts drew crowds to Marble Hill's ballpark starting on Friday, while carnival rides that opened Thursday night drew in about 500 people before the larger festival ever got going, said Sharon Lutes, president of the Bollinger County Chamber of Commerce.

Lutes estimated a crowd of about 2,000 to 2,500 had already shown up by early afternoon on Saturday.

"This is about the best year we've had," Lutes said of the 30-year-old festival.

Recently the towns around Marble Hill were asked to help organize and sponsor events, turning the Fall Festival into a true county event, said Lutes, and providing the resources needed to expand the number of events offered. Other locations, like the Cat Ranch Art Guild and the Bollinger County Museum of Natural History, offered special events at their sites, as well.

The greased pig competition, sponsored in part by local town Patton, Mo., is only in its second year, with pigs supplied for free by local farmers Bill and Ted Peters. The competition was a relatively small production compared to the Stihl chain saw Timber Team touring lumberjack show nearby, where two rough woodsmen (one is a district attorney in Wisconsin, the emcee said) performed many feats of skill with saw, ax and chain saw.

But the old-school country pig catch attracted a large crowd, including Bob and Sandra Petzoldt of rural Jackson.

"You see that, she thought she had that pig," Bob laughed, pointing out a young girl who had just let a greasy hog slip her grasp. The Petzoldts are here for the first time, attracted by what they heard was a down-home festival. The Petzoldts said they weren't disappointed by what they found in Marble Hill.

A short distance away, a crowd was just starting to assemble for the antique tractor pull.

Unlike the greased pigs, the tractor pull has been a Fall Festival tradition since the beginning, started and still run by the Bollinger County Antique Tractor Club. Back in the beginning, the weight on the weighted sled pulled by the tractors was supplied by club members standing on the sled. Finally they got their own sled -- fabricated from an old Bollinger County bridge and a semi truck.

The club even has its own 5 acres near Scopus, where it meets for regular tractor pulls.

It doesn't get much more country than that -- a perfect fit for a festival where country is key.

"We want this to be a family-oriented, down-home country, old-fashioned event," said Lutes.

Today the festival continues with an "Old Fashioned Basket Dinner and Singing" at the festival grounds, along with another lumberjack show at 2 p.m. Bluegrass band Crossroads will perform at the Cat Ranch from 2 to 4 p.m. and bluegrass musician Mitch Jayne will sign books from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

msanders@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182