Back to heros

Well, the folk saying contest is over. Time to return to the original theme of this blog — honoring our hometown heros.

Got somebody you'd like to thank, recognize or honor for doing a good deed or for just being the way they are? Post it here. Pictures are welcome, too.


I'm feeling a kind of magnamious at the moment, so I'd like to thank our local elected officials. They take a lot of flack and get blamed for things well beyond their control. Some work long hours on public business and sacrifice their personal lives to represent us.

They take their share of potshots from the public, who often assign sinister motives to things that amount to simple disagreement. God knows I don't always agree with local elected officials, but if more of us would start with the premise that they are trying to serve the public good, we might build more consensus toward positive change in Ark City and Cowley County (for that matter the country!)


An admiration for public servants runs in my family. My dad worked for U.S. Sen. Jim Pearson in the late 60s early 70s, I have a great uncle who served a short stint at U.S. Senator from Nebraska and was President Eisenhower's Secretary of Interior. I interned for Bob Dole in the early 90s. (And decided journalism was better than politics) When my internship was up, I wrote a column in the Winfield Courier saying, basically, that most elected officials work hard, care about their constituents and are innundated with requests that they can't possibly all meet. And, they can always be voted out.

15 years later, that still holds true

THE WINNER

I mostly based this on how hard it made me laugh when I heard it

Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit!

It has everything one looks for in a folk saying — humor, homey imagery and a touch of confusion about its meaning.

I'd never heard it before, but the saying is apparently common in the South. Joni Curl wins a T-shirt with the phrase on it. Thanks Joni.

Thanks also to everybody who participated. Several folks said they had a lot of fun with it — I know I did. A few people submitted nearly 20 or more sayings.

Colloquialisms tap into a universal sense of wisdom and are just plain fun. Even though the contest is over, feel free to send in more and I'll post them here.

For a full list of the sayings readers and viewers submitted, check out my column on arkcity.net. Here are a few from Patrick McDonald that I forgot to include in the written column: There’s No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. Finer than frog’s hair. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. The straw that broke the camel’s back. A penny saved is a penny earned. You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. Funnier than a one legged man in a butt kicking contest. 2 bricks shy of a load. And the one I wish I could hear more around here: Only in Ark City!

So thanks again everybody. All in all, the contest was better than a sharp stick in the eye and even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then

Best so far

I'd like to thank everybody whose sent in folks sayings to this point. This has been a blast. I've got a final call for sayings in today's Traveler. The one I like so far is from Joni Curl. Here goes:

Well butter my butt and call me a biscut!

Send in your favorite after you finishing laughing