Thousands turn out for Neighbor Days

BENTON, Mo. -- You don't have to be a neighbor for Neighbor Days.

The 36th annual event drew approximately 2,500 people Friday night and 4,000 more on Saturday, according to the Benton Chamber of Commerce, which sponsors the event.

Shirley Palen and Judie Herbst live in Cape Girardeau now, but they returned to Neighbor Days like they have every year since the 1960s. One of the highlights, they said, was seeing friends they graduated with at Benton High School 50 years ago.

"There were 27 in my graduating class of 1954 -- and we've only lost two," Palen said.

The two women are actively involved in Neighbor Days. For the past 25 years, Palen has judged needlework in the same high school building she attended as a teenager.

Herbst, a member of the Capaha Antique Car Club, has ridden in the parade for the last 30 years. Her 1966 Ford Mustang has been repainted but everything else is original, she said.

Other activities at Neighbor Days included nail driving, pie-eating and watermelon seed-spitting contests, rides, tractor pulls, horseshoe tournaments, sack races, a greased pole climb and a greased pig chase.

But the pigs aren't actually greased, said Benton Chamber of Commerce member Glen Bollinger, who has managed the chase since his grandfather, Glen Bollinger, died.

"They're hard enough to chase as it is," he said.

And horseshoes are hard enough to pick up when you're 84, but Irvin Vandeven of Leopold, Mo., had help during the Neighbor Days tournament.

He used a horseshoe hook fashioned from a broken golf club made by his friend, Marvin Margrabe of Benton. Margrabe created the device in 1981 after he broke his back. He still wanted to play horseshoes but had trouble bending down to pick them up.

"Irv used to use a chicken catcher -- just a wire with a hook on the end of it," Margrabe said. "Since he's a friend of mine, I gave him the hook."

Vandeven travels to all the tournaments he can in Southeast Missouri.

"The people are a good class of people and I've made lots of friends playing horseshoes," he said.

cpagano@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 133