WORTHINGTON -- How did Worthington get to be the town where the turkey reigns supreme?
Today's King Turkey Day festivities mark the 71st year of the event, which goes back to the 1930s. As the city began its climb out of the Great Depression, turkeys and the poultry industry played a substantial role in Worthington's return to economic prosperity. Turkey hatching, raising and processing resulted in the fields surrounding the city being covered with fattening birds. Many were processed in the E.O. Olson plant, forerunner of the Campbell Soup plant in Worthington.
Olson, while traveling in Texas in 1938, came across an unusual festival in Cuero, Texas. The town, also a center for turkey-raising, capitalized upon that fact by staging a festival called a Turkey Trot.
Intrigued by the celebration's promotional aspects, Olson broached the idea to Worthington's business community. Business leaders liked the idea of having a regular fall festival to pay tribute to the community's farm people.
The festival was dubbed King Turkey Day, and it's been a Worthington tradition since 1939, with the exception of two years during World War II. Some features of Cuero's festival were adopted, including running a live turkey flock ahead of the parade. The Worthington festival also featured free pancakes served to all comers and political leaders who offered speeches to the crowd, traditions that still continue today.
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Over the years, King Turkey Day has drawn the attention of the world through newsreel reports, national magazine coverage and network television coverage. A visit to King Turkey Day soon became a virtual necessity for every person aspiring to high political office.
Today, when Honor Flight co-founder Earl Morse addresses the crowd at 1 p.m., he will join a list of featured speakers that includes such notables as Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, Richard Nixon, Adlai Stevenson, Charles Percey, Estes Kefauver, Nelson Rockefeller, Winthrop Rockefeller, Sergeant Shriver, Wendell Wilkie, John Anderson, John Tower, Rudy Boschwitz, Dave Durenberger, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Fred Grandy, Paul Wellstone, Rod Grams and Jesse Ventura.
The population of Worthington just about triples in size during the September King Turkey Day celebration. In 1955, when Kennedy attended, the crowd was estimated at 80,000 people -- the largest crowd ever assembled in the community of 12,000 people.
As the years went by, the tie with Cuero's Turkey Trot festival was forgotten. But in 1972, word of the Cuero festival once again filtered into Worthington. A Daily Globe account explored similarities in the two celebrations. The next day, a former E.O. Olson employee recalled that Worthington's King Turkey Day stemmed from Cuero's celebration. The outcome of that revelation was a challenge to stage a turkey race to determine which city could claim to be Turkey Capital of the World.
Consequently, the Great Gobbler Gallop was introduced in 1973 and has continued each year since. One heat is run in each community during the respective festival, with the winner determined by the total elapsed time of the two races. To the winner goes the Traveling Trophy of Tumultuous Triumph. The loser is presented with the Circulating Consolation Cup of Consummate Commiseration.
A human race team is chosen from each community to guide the birds through the race course. Cuero's bird is traditionally called Ruby Begonia, while Worthington's turkey is known as Paycheck.
Paycheck won the first heat last year, taking a four second lead into the second heat in Cuero. During the heat in Cuero, Ruby Begonia crossed the finish line just a split second before Paycheck and came away with the overall victory due to a five-second penalty assessed to the Worthington team for touching their bird.
Thus far, the standings are 21 victories for Worthington and 16 for Cuero. The trophy will once again be on the line at 1:30 p.m. today as the contenders square off in the Great Gobber Gallop.
