
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, October 13, 1995                   TAG: 9510130030
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: NANCY GLEINER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

CELEBRATE GOOD TIMES

If you'd kept up with your Farmer's Almanac, you wouldn't have missed the Okra Strut Festival in Irmo, S.C., a few weeks ago. No, the slimy veggies don't strut - er, slither - through the center of town, but 50,000 people do gather to watch bushel baskets of the ``delicacy'' slide raw down contestants' throats in the okra-eating competition. One 80-year-old man won several years in a row. Maybe the strut part of the festival comes from the fact that some folks dress their kids up as little pods for the event's parade (``Doesn't little Joey look darling all squishy and green'').

Think honoring slimy vegetables is perverse? If you hurry to the airport RIGHT NOW, you can hop a plane to Marshall, Texas, for this weekend's Fire Ant Festival. Anyone who's ever been bitten by a fire ant or seen one up really close couldn't possibly fathom a reason to honor these vermin, but 70,000 people come to Marshall every year for the fire ant chili cook-off and the parade of giant insects (``Doesn't little Joey look adorable as a giant, hairy tick'').

The biggest event of the festival is seeing which team can collect the most fire ants in a milk jug during a three-hour period. Vacuum cleaners have not been effective. Shovels, either.

Of course, there's also the ``gurning'' contest, during which contestants stick their heads through a toilet seat and make their ugliest faces.

One of the festival's major sponsors is a pesticide firm.

Sure beats watching the leaves drop.

by CNB