Reality television's got nothing on the drama that takes place at judging time of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette fish story contest. The contest went down to the wire again this year with our 2015 fish-story champion, Elaine Holloway of Rogers, winning by a whisker.
Her story of a fish fry that didn't happen was judged best of the bunch in this prestigious literary competition for true fish stories. Elaine's story leads off a selection of entries from our fishing readers. Congratulations to Elaine, who received the grand prize -- a nice selection of fishing lures courtesy of Keith Brashers at War Eagle Custom Lures in Rogers and Mitch Glenn at Arkie Lures in Springdale.
Picking a winner was no picnic for our trio of judges. Fish-story magistrates this year were artist extraordinaire Sheila Ross of Beaver Lake, Aaron Jolliff who co-owns Hook, Line and Sinker in Rogers, and my tom cat, Boat Dock. Here's how the judging went down.
Judge Sheila was the first to announce her top pick, submitted by fish-story scribe Bill Rowland of Little Rock. Judge Aaron phoned fish-story central last Sunday evening, saying he couldn't decide between two of the stories. He was fond of the story from Carol Spears of West Fork, who wrote about getting stung by a sting ray in Africa. He also liked Elaine's fish fry story. You could almost hear a drum roll as Aaron thought about it, then picked Elaine's story. So we have our two finalists, Elaine and Bill.
Enter chief fish-story judge Boat Dock, who is also feline outdoors columnist for this newspaper. I take the two stories home and place them next to each other outside on the deck. I put an equal number of cat treats on each story. Whichever story Boat Dock goes to for his treat is the winner.
So it's Sunday evening and Boat Dock is naturally in the throes of a 19-hour power nap, flat on his back in the living room. I shake the treats bag. Now he's wide awake. Chief judge prances out on the deck, tail held high, and makes a bee line for Elaine's story. We have our winner.
Elaine was tickled to get the lures when I drove over to meet Elaine, her husband Mike, and deliver the goods.
"I thought, by golly, I'm retired and I'm going to enter that," she said. Elaine is a retired nurse and Mike works at Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport.
Elaine promises she'll be back next year to defend her title. And brother, does she have an arsenal of stories. There's one about the time she went to take a bath and found a 25-pound catfish in the tub. Look out fish-story scribes. Elaine could be the first back-to-back winner in contest history.
Again, congratulations to Elaine and thanks to everyone who entered.
Flip Putthoff can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @NWAFlip
Sports on 06/25/2015