A Hopping Great Time

I attended the Dillsboro Homecoming in Dearborn County, Indiana (about an hour's drive west of Cincinnati according to the town's website) to help make a presentation for work.

Indiana farmers hosted a sweepstakes offering Hoosier shoppers a year's worth of free groceries and one of the grand prize winners lives near Dillsboro! The organizers of the Homecoming were gracious enough to allow us to present the winner with her prize on the stage during the opening ceremonies. We went after the national anthem and before the frog jumping contest...you heard right - frog jumping contest!

I've been to many small town festivals in my life. All of them have great food, many of them have a carnival, but this was my first frog jumping contest!

One of the farmers there told me that he hadn't had to catch a frog since his children were young but some neighbor girls wanted to enter the contest so he caught a couple but had "forgotten how hard they were to catch."

Before the frog jumping contest got underway, there was a Best Dressed Frog Competition! Here are some of my favorites:

This one was wearing a rabbit outfit and was named Houdini!

This one had a wrestling theme...

This one played to the hometown crowd with a re-creation of the Homecoming...

They even had a "parade of frogs" so the crowd could get a closer look - and there was a crowd.

I think the Homecoming Frog took first place.

Then it was on to the Frog Jumping Contest. I'm not sure of the rules, but I believe they allowed the frog 3 hops and measured those. Rumor has it that the record frog jump is 19 feet.

Storm clouds were rolling in so we grabbed an ice cream cone (Twist, of course) and left before the winner was announced. However, I did manage to grab a couple of shots!

Just another example of why I love living in middle America!