PEOPLE GATHER AT LENTEN FISH FRY

SCOTT CITY -- It's no secret the Knights of Columbus have all the makings for a great meal. Just ask the 1,200 or so people who gather weekly for a fish fry.

The menu: Catfish, hushpuppies, potato wedges, slaw and baked beans. There's coffee and tea to drink.

"It's just a good meal," said Joe Raines after his dinner. He and his wife, Dorothy, have missed only one of the weekly Lenten fish fries that began in early March. This week they brought company friends who were visiting from Colorado.

For seven weeks during Lent, and periodically throughout the fall, teams of volunteers gather in the fry room at the KC Hall on U.S. 61 South to prepare a fish fry on a grand scale.

The proceeds gathered during Lent are used to fund parish school programs among the Catholic churches in Scott City, Kelso, Benton, and Chaffee and for the church at New Hamburg.

The work begins on Thursday morning when the truckload of fish, heads of cabbage, bags of potatoes and cases of baked beans arrive. On Friday, the intense labor begins.

Members of the KC women's auxiliary gather at 8:30 a.m. to chop the cabbage and ingredients for slaw. They'll return around 1 p.m. to mix the ingredients and continue the meal preparations.

Around that same time, a team of men come to clean and cut the fish all 900 pounds of it. More workers, all of them Knights of Columbus members, will arrive later in the afternoon to weigh out the fish, bread the fish and fry it. They'll also cut 420 pounds or so of potatoes into wedges and fry them, not to mention making the hushpuppies.

It sounds like an abundance of food, but you don't want to run out, said Bud Holder, a KC member.

"The first two or three times we ran out and had more people than we anticipated," he said

During peak times, the work is nonstop. When the crowd dwindles, the fryers slack a bit, but otherwise they keep breading and frying fish until the last person is fed.

Sometimes that is earlier than others. Serving is from 4 to 7 p.m., but people trickle in around 3:15 and wait for the fish to be served. No one complains about the wait because they want hot food, Holder said.

Other people come for the Friday night bingo games upstairs and then make their way downstairs for dinner.

The hall can seat 175, with a bit of space available for larger groups of six or so who want to visit after the meal, Holder said.

While the idea is to get people to come for dinner, "we don't want them to stay too long or we run out of tables," he said.

By 4:30, the line of people waiting to be served wrapped around the edges of the room and back out the door into the gravel parking lot. More vehicles were pulling in.

Carryouts are available, so some people just come to pick up orders.

"We've asked for a drive-through window, but the guys haven't put it in yet," said Karen Burger, who works the carryout table.

Some in the crowd are regulars, like the Raines, who come every week.

The people don't just come from the immediate area.

"We have a couple who come from Dexter," Burger said.

She's been able to recognize some familiar faces "what few you can see when you're serving 1,250" by working at the front table.

Mary Jane Mattes knows who's a regular and who's a newcomer by where they head upon entering the building. The tickets are sold at a small table to the left of the door; carryout orders are taken at a table just steps in front of the door.

"You can always tell when they don't know where to go," Mattes said.

It doesn't take long for the newcomers to become regulars, the women say. People keep coming back "because it's good fish and good food," Burger said.

And there are as many Protestants in the crowds as there are Catholics, said Rita Ostendorf.

FISH FRY SCHEDULE

KC Fish Fry each Friday except Good Friday

Lower KC Hall, Scott City

Serving from 4-7 p.m.