Annual fair bubble gum contest a sticky blowout
Pro tip: If you’re entering a bubble gum contest, it’s best to slather your lower face with an emollient. That includes facial hair.
“What I do is I get lip-stuff and I coat my goatee down a little bit,” contestant Mike Conners said. “And it just kind of evaporates in this heat, so it goes away on its own.”
The West Texas Fair & Rodeo’s annual Bubble Gum Contest was Tuesday, held this time at Guitar Arena. Fifty people registered, divided into five classes ranging from 5 and under, to 21 and over.
Bubbles were measured using borrowed calipers from a local tire shop. Mike’s wife, Arick, in her 21-and-over group claimed the prize for largest bubble at 7¾ inches.
“You get two bubble gums,” she said, explaining her strategy. “You flatten it with your tongue, make sure the wind's not blowing it wrong, and then you can blow your bubble.”
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There was a bit of a wind-tunnel effect at the arena, supplemented by the large ceiling fans overhead. In past years the contest wa in the since-demolished Griffin Arena, where the air had been a lot more still, sometimes stifling-so.
Youngsters had a harder go at it than the older folks. A few ended up spitting out their gum as they tried blowing a bubble, prompting others to hold their own gum to their lips using their fingers. Not a bad strategy, if not always an effective one.
Carolyn Harris, also in the adult class, wowed the small crowd by blowing a bubble inside of her bubble.
“Yes, I did. I was being a little sneaky there,” she said, laughing. “You blow it and then you close it up, and you start all over again and it just expands the first one.”
Carey Parsons coordinated the event. She hopes next year to hold it a little later in the day to attract more participation instead of starting in the 4 o’clock hour, when kids are just getting home from school. But even with only word-of-mouth and an appearance in the fair’s schedule, she was pleased with the turnout.
One of her vivid memories of her father, Eugene Bush, is coming to the fair around 1980 when she was 14 and winning this same bubble gum contest.
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“I had on a red bandanna, and the bubble popped,” she said, recalling she had appeared as the winner in the next day’s Reporter-News. “My mom had put Vaseline on my face so it wouldn't stick.”
Those pro tips, still strong after all these years.
This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: Annual fair contest a sticky blow out
