This week we salute The Emerson PurpleHull Pea Festival and World Championship Rotary Tiller Race, set for June 29-30. It's a beautiful thing.
For all the info, go to purplehull.com.
Because we have written about the festival and the tiller races since long before the national media got on board, we feel a kinship with the event and its people, one that deepens with time and was born out of love and respect and passion for the simple purplehull and for the not-so-simple soupled-up tiller, a machine that might be the best friend a pea ever had.
This week we'll share some photographs taken by Hal Miller, Rhoda Wallace and festival Pea-R man magnifico Bill Dailey, who wrote most of the words that follow...
First, there's Erica Butler of Springhill, Louisiana. She's the current ladies champ and world record holder. Has won it the past two years. In 2005, the then 18-year-old stunned the tiller racing world with a time almost as good as the guys', 200 feet in 6.19 seconds. (Photo by Bill Dailey.)
Then there's Lauri Waller of Parkers Chapel, Arkansas. She won the ladies division the first three years it was in existence, and was renown for her tiller control, though being just a tiny slip of a lady. (Photo by Hal Miller.)
