I live in a rural community. Our school still has an agricultural science program (now run though the local Joint Vocational School) and FFA (Future Farmers’ Association). So when October comes, our school puts on the Fall Fair. The FCCLA (what used to be Future Homemakers of America) works with the FFA to put on the do. The band performs their marching band program (senior night for marching band, even). We don’t have football, so Fall Fair is our big event while other schools are having their various Homecomings. (Our Homecoming is in December, during basketball season.)

Friday night was Fall Fair. I arrived shortly before the event commonly called the Farm Olympics. AKA the Class Challenge. Each high school grade sends a team of 8 students, 4 males, 4 females, to compete in 8 silly competitions. This year, all of the teams had matching t-shirts of some sort. The juniors and the sophomores actually had shirts printed that were quite cute. The juniors went with green with pink writing. The sophomores, black shirts with white print. The seniors and freshman hand-did their shirts. I loved the seniors’ slogan: If it’s rigged, we will win!

Since I teach juniors & seniors, I rooted for their teams. But I enjoyed watching them all perform. All of the competitive events revolved around team effort – either in pairs or all as a group. The first was quite unique – they were tied into a knot of 8 kids & had to untie themselves without unclasping hands. The seniors must have rigged theirs (heh) because they were unknotted within seconds. It was entertaining to watch – sort of like extreme Twister.

Other events were the three-legged race, extreme flag tag (the freshmen kicked butt in this event), leap frog – over & under (the seniors wound up cheating and were disqualified because they were TOO obvious), bat spin (run down the gym floor, pick up a bat, bend over with it touching your forehead, spin 10 times, and run back – I’d be sick on this one), the wheelbarrow race, etc.

Halfway through the events, they reported on the winners of the Fall Fair events (anyone from the community can enter items from a variety of categories, farming, cooking, crafts, etc.) Then they announced the winner of the Kiss the Pig contest. In year’s past, the FFA/FCCLA were able to goad teachers into doing this, but the past few years it’s just been seniors. One of my senior boys announced that he wanted to win the Kiss the Pig contest this year. But all through the week, I heard the names of other students in the lead. So what is a kind teacher like me to do? Why, put $10 in his jar at lunch! I was quite pleased when he won and came up to kiss the pig. Lucky kid! I am so nice, aren’t I? 🙂

The final event of the Class Challenge was for each student to run down the gym floor, stuff 4 marshmallows in their mouth & shout “fluffy bunny!” Of course, with 4 marshmallows in your mouth, you aren’t very loud, so the judges (holding the bags of mar-mars) had to listen carefully. Most of the students ate their marshmallows, but I noticed the Sophomores had a spit bag for their teammates to use when they returned to home base. (Um, yuck!)

Well, after a hilarious evening of good sportsmanship (and only a little cheating) and teamwork, the sophomores came in first, followed by the seniors, then juniors, and finally freshmen. I enjoyed the evening of silliness. And it’s a lot more fun than most high school sporting events because no one takes it too seriously.

So what did I do tonight to try & top last night? Went out to see TWO movies at the theater. I saw Serenity and Wallace & Gromit. Had supper in between them and followed the movies with a hot fudge cake at Big Boy. Yum! I enjoyed both movies and will definitely see them again sometime. (DVD purchases? Most likely…) Tomorrow’s supposed to be laundry day, so hopefully I’ll be a good gurl and clean house too. We’ll just have to wait & see.