World Cow Chip Throwing Contest

World Cow Chip Throwing Contest

By: © Nelson Taylor 2012

Sick of taking crap from assholes? Then get your butt to Beaver, the sight of the annual World Cow Chip Throwing Championship. That's right sludge-swallowers, April is the month to pitch a little poop yourself. The event dates back to 1970 when Beaver -- like one-horse towns all around America -- was having an identity crisis. "We had no pizzazz," says Kirk Fisher, who is one of the Cow Chip's founding fathers and is the current emcee. "No one acknowledged us. But after that first fling, people came by the droves to throw those damn things." What started as an off-the-cuff idea has slowly progressed not only into the national, but the international sport arena. Sport? Although not yet Olympic level, different hoe-down hamlets all across the States, including foreign locales like Japan, Germany and Australia, conduct their own sanctioned contests with hopes that their local far-flinger will return from Beaver with the crown.

Cow chips have been the saving grace in many range communities for hundreds of years. Early settlers depended on the humble commodity to keep them warm during the winter. Because it produces such an odorless, sootless heat more intense than local lumber, cow chips fueled many a campfire, stove and indoor furnace -- not to mention many a baby-making romp or two. Imagine the ambiance! Honey, I've got a heap o' dung warming in the fire. What do you say we get nasty? So important was dried shit to the new world that some even go as far as to call it brown gold; local literature has it ma and pa used to trade wagon loads for needed food and supplies.

But now cow chips bring a different kind of gold and glory to the local economy. Thirty-five greenbacks insure a shot at world recognition. Every year, a lucky few Beaverites search secret fields for the cream of the crop. "Rules say they have to be local chips no less than six inches in diameter," Fisher says. "The damn Texans always think theirs are better and try to sneak in their own. We've even had to go as far as to post a round-the-clock guard for the chip wagon." Each anxious contestant chooses two chips from the piled-high petrified pancakes. Rules? Well, there's no hard-and-fast toss technique. "But," Fisher says, "this is a bare-handed ordeal."

Jim Pass, who hails from Plains, Kansas (just 40 miles up the highway from Beaver), is the 1998 World Champ. Although not a great outing, Jim took home the proverbial cake with a 158'1" hurl, well behind the world record 182'3" heave by Leland Searcy in 1979. Jim's technique? "I usually pick a chip that's about 8 inches across," he says, "one that isn't too wet, but isn't too dry either. And it's got to be fairly flat, and then I just throw it like a baseball." Pass says he grew up in a sports oriented family, so it wasn't hard for him to master cow chip trajectory. Holding his chip at the edge with all five fingers, he cocks and releases at a 45-50 degree angle, giving it just a hint of backspin. Although Pass has never practiced before, he says this year might be different. "It's gotten serious now," he says. "I'm going for the world record, so I just might slip out into the yard and try a practice throw or two."

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