PADUCAH — The 143rd annual St. Jerome Fancy Farm Picnic will attract thousands of visitors to small-town America in western Kentucky. The droves of people who descend on Fancy Farm and the surrounding areas of Graves County will enjoy tasty barbecue, play bingo and other games, and listen to political stump speeches.
At its core, the Fancy Farm Picnic serves as a charitable fundraiser for St. Jerome Catholic Church. Over time the event has grown larger and more popular compared to its small-town beginnings in the 1880s.
The gathering is now a uniquely political American spectacle that features political candidates vying for votes and support. Politicians take the stage under a pavilion to deliver a speech typically filled with one-liners and zingers aimed at their opponents.
With limited broadband internet access in Fancy Farm and cellphone towers slowed down because of the thousands of smart phones being used, the picnic allows people to take a step back in time to a moment in our American history without modern technology to distract people from interacting with others or when listening to candidates speak.
Bill Bartleman worked as a reporter for The Paducah Sun from 1972-2010.
First District McCracken County Commissioner Bill Bartleman worked as a reporter for The Paducah Sun newspaper for nearly four decades before retiring in 2010. He can still recall the novelty of experiencing the Fancy Farm Picnic as a reporter for the first time in 1972.
“I knew nothing about it until I had the assignment sheet to go to Fancy Farm and take pictures. It was pretty cool,” Bartleman said.
Bartleman said the speeches candidates deliver at Fancy Farm these days are more structured than the traditional stump speech candidates delivered in years past.
“Stump is just a real good rousing speech to rouse the crowd up. You talk about issues and get excitement in the crowd. You have excitement in your voice, and you talk about issues that are important to people, and you get the crowd really fired up. It’s grassroots politics. I mean, it’s the way politics should be. Today everything is scripted with political candidates,” Bartleman said.
Fancy Farm Political Chairman Steven Elder agreed that things have changed over the years, but there is still a bit of quaintness to the event.
Steven Elder serves as political chairman of the Fancy Farm Picnic.
“For that moment you, are kind of stepping back in time. You’re sitting there, and you’re truly focused on these politicians and these candidates coming in and speaking to the crowd. To be able to stand up there and roast your opponent with that person standing right there beside you, that’s unique. You really don’t get that opportunity anywhere else,” Elder said.
The term stump speech is an expression that dates back to early American history, when politicians traveled the country delivering a standardized speech to win over voters. In the 1800s, candidates would make their way across rural America, stepping up on recently chopped down trees to get above a crowd and deliver a basic message for a broad audience.
The basic stump speech was then and remains today a handy campaign tool to use time and time again while out on the road.
These days, political speeches at Fancy Farm are scheduled for a specific time frame on Saturday, but that wasn’t always the case. That was especially true in the early 1900s as the political speaking grew in popularity.
Current U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) addresses a crowd at Fancy Farm in 1989.
“You may have a current candidate that would come and speak at 12 p.m., and then somebody else would speak at 2 p.m., and then somebody might speak at 4 p.m. So it’s kind of like an all-day event where you didn’t have social media and you didn’t have telephones even. People would just kind of come into town, and once they got there they would speak,” Elder said.
The political speech aspect of the church fundraiser really took off in 1931 when A.B. “Happy” Chandler appeared while campaigning for lieutenant governor and credited his speech at Fancy Farm for winning the seat.
“He won the lieutenant governor back in the 1930s. He coined, ‘That was the luck of Fancy Farm’ and so he decided to keep coming back each year,” Elder said.
Then-Democratic vice presidential nominee Al Gore spoke at the picnic in 1992.
In addition to individuals running for statewide office, Fancy Farm has had its fair share of high-profile national figures address the crowd. In 1975, then-presidential candidate George Wallace made an appearance. He survived an assassination attempt in 1972 that left him paralyzed below the waist. Then-Democratic vice presidential nominee Al Gore spoke at the picnic in 1992.
However, locals will be quick to tell you that national figures aren’t the reason for large crowds. It is the men and women running for a statewide office in Kentucky people want to hear from while they enjoy a barbecue sandwich and play games.
Regardless of party affiliation, the people who attend the Fancy Farm Picnic expect the candidates to show up.
A crowd that gathered to hear politicians speak during the event in 1993.
“You can’t win Fancy Farm, necessarily, but you can lose by not being there,” Elder said.
Bartleman agreed with that assessment and said the event’s uniqueness is something to still be celebrated.
“I think it’s still quaint in today’s political world. I would be willing to guess there’s not — if there’s one or two other events like this in the country, I’d be surprised. It’s still a one-on-one event where the candidate does not control the crowd,” Bartleman said.
The 143rd Fancy Farm Picnic will be held Saturday, Aug. 5, with political speeches starting at 2 p.m.
