Mr. Jeff Vanderbeck, Publisher
Appalachian Newspapers, Inc.
129 Caroline Avenue
Pikeville, Kentucky 41502
Dear Sir:
I’ve seen quite a few comments about an article you wrote concerning “Fancy Farm” and although I opted not to spar with a reporter who had no idea what he was talking about, I was compelled by many members of my community to speak out.
First, I have no idea why my local newspaper, The Mayfield Messenger chose to rerun your article. Honestly, I have no idea why anyone would choose to rerun your article. But that is a beef I have with them, not you, so I will direct that to them.
Secondly, did you even come to the Picnic? I think that if you did then you would know that politicians do not gather in a field, as you mention, but on a really nice stage in a very welcoming venue in the middle of our small western Kentucky town. But let’s assume that you came to the Picnic.
Surely, you did not interact with anyone who was from the community or from the church. If you had, you would not have had one bad thing to say about our Picnic. You can talk trash all you want about the politicians. They sign up for that when they throw their hat in the ring. I will not stand for you talking trash about my community, my picnic or most certainly about my church.
You are right in saying that the tradition of the St. Jerome Fancy Farm Picnic is a tradition in Kentucky politics. It’s not much different than the first Saturday in May. As a Kentuckian, I know where I will be on the first Saturday in May and the first Saturday in August. I’m not going to discuss your disgust for Kentucky politics or politicians but I will tell you that when the first Picnic was held out in Fancy Farm in 1880 it was just a community inviting their friends and neighbors to join them in some games and a good meal. You would probably be disgusted to know that one of the highlights of the first public Picnic was “gander pulling”. Google that. There was nothing mentioned about politicians or elected officials. But I’ll bet you that there were plenty of politicians at that first Picnic. Back then whenever a crowd got together politicians were all over the place. That was their only way of campaigning. And since the Picnic was held the same week as the Kentucky Primaries it didn’t take too long for every politician who was running for state-wide office to show up at the event. Years later, it became a big deal for state-wide politicians to show up because Alben Barkley (you might not know him, he was a long-term Senator from Kentucky and Vice-President under Harry Truman) was from Wheel, Kentucky (right down the road from Fancy Farm) and he made it a point to come to the Picnic. When Happy Chandler (I assume you know who he is) decided to run against Senator Barkley he made a point to come to Fancy Farm. He wanted to beat Barkley on his home turf. Happy Chandler liked the Picnic mainly because of the food and the fact that they had a band and he could dance with all the lovely ladies who came to the Picnic. He always left the grounds when it was over, with his white suit drenched from dancing in the August heat.
So the St. Jerome Picnic at Fancy Farm wasn’t any different than a fellowship event that was held at First Baptist Church in Pikeville. The difference is that politics has evolved in Kentucky. Politicians don’t have to go out and press flesh anymore. They can place TV ads. They can advertise in your newspaper. Shoot, they can sit at home and post to Instagram and Facebook and Twitter and give speeches on YouTube without having to interact with a single voter. The difference is that it is still going on, 138 years later. You see, the politicians in Kentucky truly believe that if they want to win a state-wide office they had better make the trip to Fancy Farm, Kentucky and attend the St. Jerome Picnic. Yes, we invite them. Yes, we give them 2 minutes to impress the voters that also travel across the state to listen to what they have to say. And some of those spectators will make sure those politicians know how they feel about what they are saying. You would be surprised at the number of politicians who just show up. And you’d be equally surprised to learn that the majority of the people listening to the politicians are not from western Kentucky. A lot of these people come into our small town in bus loads. The man who won the Jeep this year came on a bus load of farmers. In fact, I think it was Senator McConnell who first started busing in supporters whose main objective was to drown out the other speakers (I do remember the Picnic Committee tried to put a stop to that. I’m not sure if it did any good). Those must be the people you were referring to when you said that we were “nothing but idiocy, hatred and intolerance”. I can assure you that the majority of people of St. Jerome’s are not in that crowd. They’re in the stands, working.
You see, that’s what we do. We work that Picnic. We start months beforehand getting everything ready for everyone who makes the trip into our small town. There are an awful lot of people who come that aren’t politicians, and aren’t reporters, who have always wanted to attend or who wouldn’t miss it for the world. We start days after the Picnic is over preparing for our next one. We plan everything down to the last detail. And we begin on Friday morning. We begin with prayer, because that is who we are. We have Mass and then we bless the barbeque pits and ask the Lord’s blessings on the success of our Picnic. We put about 20,000 pounds of meat on those pits because we know that there are going to be many people who come who want to experience that aspect of our Picnic. We do tell the politicians that we do get to meet to make a point to go into the stands to meet the families that are working. If you want my vote I need you to come to the stand where they sell BBQ by the pound. My family has been doing that for 4 generations.
We’re not a group of Christians who preach. We choose to show our love and peace and harmony by our actions. We truly love working this picnic. We have family members who come home from around the world to work this picnic. They bring their friends too, because they can’t wait to introduce their love of their picnic and the love of their family to their friends. And it is all generations working in harmony and peace (for the most part) for a common purpose. Yes, there are some of our family members who might behave stupid but they do it with a Christian heart.
I do take offense at you referring to our Picnic as Fancy Farm. I know that a lot of people only know it as such. It is the St. Jerome Fancy Farm Picnic. I do know for many years that it evolved into being the Fancy Farm Picnic. There are a lot of people that I talk with during the year that want to know about the farm that the Picnic is held on. It’s not, it’s held on church grounds (I think you refer to them as “sacred”). They want to know what town it’s in. I just send them GPS coordinates. Let me reiterate, this is just a church picnic. I’m not sure about Pikeville, but being raised in Louisville there are church picnics every weekend. I’m sure that politicians attend those. I know that in western Kentucky (note that “w” is not capitalized as it is not a proper noun as you had it in your article) politicians attend at least 4 Catholic church picnics: St. Denis in Fancy Farm, St. Charles in Bardwell, St. Jerome in Fancy Farm, and St. John in Paducah.
Something else too. We don’t have a say in what the politicians say. These are educated, sophisticated people (in most cases). Politicians get away with saying things like that because the crowd encourages it. Have you heard our President give a speech recently? I mean, that’s how he got elected. Do you want us to eliminate that aspect of our Picnic? Sir, this is a tradition, and we could not see that happen any more than if the people who own Churchill Downs would say they’re not going to have the Kentucky Derby anymore. People would still come into our small town and they would insist that the politicians be given the chance to speak. I’m sure you’ve heard of stump speeches. That’s what we’d have because that’s the way it started. I guess you’d rather everyone stay at home and choose who they’re going to vote for by watching a YouTube channel.
As far as your recommendation, why don’t you all in Pike County hold a political picnic, at a neutral venue? Remember to serve bourbon (we can’t do that in Graves County, we’re dry). Take the time to decide who is blue and who is red because down here if you’re talking bleeding blue or red you better be talking about the University of Kentucky or the University of Louisville or the St. Louis Cardinals or the Chicago Cubs. We invite you to host that event.
As far as we’re concerned, we’ll still meet up for Mass on Friday morning before the Picnic, bless the meat and put 20,000 lbs of mutton and pork on the pits. That starts the day that won’t end until sometime Sunday afternoon when everything is cleaned up and we don’t even know that anyone was here.
And, on a personal note, if you decide to come to the Picnic again and see it through our eyes, I invite you. You can stay at my house, I’ll put you to work in the meat stand and then I’ll feed you all the BBQ pork, mutton, fried chicken, homegrown veggies and homemade pies you can eat. Shoot, I’ll even let you sit with me and play a game or two of Bingo. You’ll be absolutely exhausted when you leave but you won’t be able to wait to come back.
I appreciate your consideration.
Sincerely,
Cynthia Elder
3131 State Route 339 North
Fancy Farm, Kentucky 42039
Touché 😊