Hair Stylist's Fish Story A Cut Above

When Velma Willyard Duncan of Winslow picked up a pen to write her fish story, she figured it didn't stand a snowball's chance of winning. Fact is, she wrote it to kill some time.

"I didn't write it to win any contest. When I did it I was bored," Duncan said last Thursday when I drove down to Winslow to give Velma her grand prize, a bag of fishing lures.

Little did she know that filling a little down time would bring her fame and fishing lures as winner of the 2014 fish-story contest, sponsored each year by the Outdoors section of this newspaper.

"I didn't have a book. I didn't have anything to crochet," said Duncan, who has a hair salon in Winslow. "The paper was laying there and it said to write the funniest fish story."

So she did. We're tickled to publish Velma's story, and several others from the contest. Thanks to one and all who entered.

The contest went down to the wire, or the whisker, as it does every year with my tom cat, Boat Dock, being one of the three judges. Here's how the judging played out.

This is the first year a bona fide, professional editor has been a judge. That would be Leeanna Walker, who edits all the stories for Outdoors (even Boat Dock's stuff) to make sure they're fit to print. She picked the story by George Rowland of Fayetteville, who wrote about crappie fishing with his mom and dad.

George enters the fish-story contest faithfully each year, so we at fish-story central were tickled that Leeanna chose his entry.

Honorable fish-story judge Jon Stein, area fisheries biologist with the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission, picked the story that Velma wrote about her dad catching a catfish in an unusual way. So we had our two finalists, Velma and George.

Oh the suspense, the intrigue. Who will be the champion? This is where Boat Dock, feline outdoors columnist here at the paper, dons his black robe and makes his grand entrance to judge. All rise.

To pick the winner, I take the two stories home and lay them side by side on the living room carpet, as I did last week. An equal number of cat treats is placed in the center of each story. Then I shake the bag of treats to summon the honorable judge Boat Dock, who is usually power napping upstairs. When he hears that shake-shake, he hops out of bed like a Pop Tart. Whichever story he goes to for his treat is the winner.

Now listen up, because fish-story-contest history was made last week. Boat Dock refused to judge. Guess you could say he recused himself. Hizzonor came downstairs all right, but he wouldn't go near the stories. He hid behind the rocker, then went and crawled under the coffee table.

Boat Dock is on my list. Two weeks ago he broke out of his cat carrier when I tried to take him to the vet. Last week he wouldn't judge the fish stories.

Fine. That's because his sister, T.C., saw the predicament and, in her own little cat way, said, "Treats? Heck yeah. I'll be happy to judge." T.C. strolled over to the stories and made a bee line for Velma's. Tadah! We have our champion. Congratulations to Velma.

A thousand thanks to Keith Brashers at War Eagle Custom Lures in Rogers and Mitch Glenn at Arkie Lures in Springdale for donating the fine selection of fishing lures Velma received. Velma doesn't figure she'll use them herself, but said she has a bevy of relatives who fish, so she'll divvy them out.

Again, thanks to everyone who entered. And if you didn't, time to get out there and fish so you'll have a story to send in next year.

Outdoors on 06/19/2014

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