RIPLEY – The cool weather made for large crowds at the 28th annual Ohio Tobacco Festival last weekend. The Ohio State Highway Patrol reported 1,600 cars on Saturday night alone during their team up with the Brown County Sheriff’s Office for a DUI check point on U.S. 62/68.
The event kicked off on Thursday, Aug. 27 with the annual Tobacco Queen Pageant. The 2009 Tobacco Queen was Melanie Day, first runner up was Brittany Kaiser, and second runner up was Lauren Heath.
The Queen contest winners were front and center the following day for the annual Tobacco Festival Parade. Floats from all over Ripley and Brown County participated, along with many politicians and businesses. The Ripley-Union-Lewis-Huntington Athletic Boosters won first place for their float and the Bow Wow animal boutique won second place.
Following the parade, a short ceremony was held at the VIP Dinner that is held at the American Legion Post in Ripley each year. Tobacco Festival President Greg Applegate thanked everyone for attending the event and said that a lot of people work to make the festival a success each year.
“There’s a lot that goes on at this festival each year and there are a lot of people working behind the scenes to make it happen,” Applegate said.
Applegate presented festival parade grand marshals Becky Cropper and David Dugan with awards, and presented Georgetown graduate Hannah Scott and South Gallia graduate Megan Daines with scholarships from the Tobacco Festival Committee. Daines is currently attending the University of Rio Grande and hopes to teach high school education. Scott was unable to be present for the VIP dinner.
Additionally, Applegate presented Bill and Joann Fauth with a new VIP award for their work in the Tobacco Festival. The award was new to this year.
“I’ve been involved with this for 28 years and it’s the right thing to do to keep our festival alive,” Bill Fauth said.
The tobacco grading and stripping contest was moved to Main Street this year and a crowd gathered to watch as festival committee members explained the process. Lifetime tobacco growers Art Meranda and Danny Harmon took first and second in the grading and second and first in the stripping contest. Vonda Harmon and Bonnie Meranda took first and second in the women’s division for both contests. Jeremy Harmon won first place in the youth division for grading.
Newcomer to the contest, Rick Lanfear, did well in his own right. Lanfear recently moved to Ripley from New York.
“I’d never seen a tobacco plant before today, so this was quite the learning experience,” Lanfear said. “I had a lot of fun.”
Saturday’s activities continued with the Ripley Idol contest. Seven local singers entered for a chance to strut their stuff on stage. Lauren Ring, of Georgetown, was named the 2009 Ripley Idol.
Most of the afternoon Front Street was crowded with a great selection of well polished classics for the OTF car show. The show featured everything from the great fins of the 1950s to modern classics such as a cherry red Corvette.
There was plenty of food and vendors for the crowd, including favorites such as the RULH FFA pork tenderloins.
As the shadows grew longer a crowd gathered behind Slugger’s and the 50s Diner for the annual bed race. After a demonstration run from the OTF Queen and runners up two teams went head to head for the title. The team of Taylor Scott, of Ripley; Ryan Moore, of Ripley; Doug Brandenburg, of Higginsport; Michael Stanfield-Fegley, of Manchester; and their runner Rachel Skinner, of Felicity came in first.
The festivities wrapped up on Sunday, Aug. 30 starting with a prayer breakfast early in the morning at the RULH Elementary School. Harriett Jackson-Groh and Doug Green performed several songs for the event, and prayer was given by Shinkles Ridge Church pastor John Bender. Physician and county coroner Tim McKinley was the guest speaker at the event, and talked about his experiences in growing up in a farming community.
“One of the life lessons we learn from agriculture is hard work, and it (farming) is hard work,” McKinley said. “One farmer each year can feed 129 people a year.”
© Copyright: Peoplesdefender
Tobacco is an annual or bi-annual growing 1-3 meters tall with large sticky leaves that contain nicotine. Native to the Americas, tobacco has a long history of use as a shamanic inebriant and stimulant. It is extremely popular and well-known for its addictive potential.
Nicotiana rustica leaves.
Nicotiana rustica leaves have a nicotine content as high as 9%, whereas Nicotiana tabacum (common tobacco) leaves contain about 1 to 3%
A cigar is a tightly rolled bundle of dried and fermented tobacco which is ignited so that its smoke may be drawn into the mouth. Cigar tobacco is grown in significant quantities in Brazil, Cameroon, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Indonesia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Sumatra, Philippines, and the Eastern United States.
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the fresh leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as an organic pesticide, and in the form of nicotine tartrate it is used in some medicines. In consumption it may be in the form of cigarettes smoking, snuffing, chewing, dipping tobacco, or snus.
