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More bad news from Sweetwater, TX
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by Phobos on March 15, 2005
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This is really a crime against nature.
Maybe we should write the reporter too.
http://sweetwaterreporter.com/articles/2005/03/14/news/news.txt
Round-Up records fifth highest pound total
By Ben Barkley/Reporter Managing Editor
In a moment that will be remembered by all of those in attendance, the Sweetwater Jaycees honored one of their own during the final moments of the 47th annual World's Largest Rattlesnake Round-Up Sunday afternoon.
After all the awards were handed out, Dennis Cornutt's three sons -- Jason, Heath and Ray -- were called into the show pit, where they received a standing ovation in honor of their father. Several people wiped away tears as the three men stood saluting their father, who died in an automobile accident Friday night.
Law enforcement officials said Cornutt suffered a heart attack while traveling home from the Round-Up Friday and rolled his vehicle.
Julie Hurn was presented with the Rooster of the Year award during the Round-Up. She raised the plaque over her head and simply said, "This one is for you Dennis."
Hurn, who is one of the co-chairman of the cookoff, asked those in attendance at Saturday's awards ceremony to raise their drink in honor of Cornutt.
Jaycee member Hank Waldrop said Saturday morning that Cornutt would want the Round-Up to go on. And that was exactly what happened at the Nolan County Coliseum.
For the first time since 1992, the total number of pounds of rattlesnakes turned in topped the 10,000 pound mark.
A total of 10,212 pounds was recorded during the four days of the Round-Up. That is the fifth highest total in the history of the event.
A trend continued as Eric Timaeus brought in the largest snake of the weekend. His sixth straight winning find was 77 inches in length.
"This is just becoming a normal thing," he said after showing the crowd his snake.
Jamie Nail was the top group to bring in the most pounds. A total of 1,665 pounds was brought in by the group.
One of the most entertaining events of the weekend was the rattlesnake eating contest. And history was made during the contest.
For the first time, a tie was recorded for first place. Eric Hurley and Sean Powers tied for eating the most snake in a 60-second span.
Officials made a determination to have the two men compete in a 30-second "eat-off" to determine the first place finisher. Hurley was crowned the champion after the second contest. Two-time champion Allen Perrie was third in the contest.
The Jaycees also conducted their 16th annual cookoff. Ronnie Wade of Hillsboro captured the grand champion title.
"I had a great time. This is my first time here," he said. "I am going to be back."
Wade and his team, Blazen BBQ finished second in the brisket competition; and third in the ribs competition and snake competition.
Winners of each category in the cookoff were One Slice at a Time for brisket; Crawford Cooking for chicken; Bar-B-Que and Brew Crew for ribs; Barnes Buddies BBQ Team for snake; and Weldon E. Lloyd for chili.
The Girl Scouts Salsa Challenge and Dessert Contest drew entries from around the area and included the rattlesnake peanut butter dessert of Jim Nixon of Copperas Cove, which was named the best dessert in the miscellaneous group and best overall.
Other winners in the dessert competition were Steve Ford Insurance of Sweetwater for cakes; Lori Jones of Sweetwater for cobblers and Nancy Soles of Sweetwater for pies.
The best overall salsa was made by Sherree Turner of Tuscola. Other winners included Terrie Pierce of Lamesa for most unique; Coby Hamlin of Sweetwater for hottest; Bret Woodard of Caddo Mills for mildest; and Richard Garza of Abilene for people's choice.
The winners of the Sweetwater Reporter's coloring contest were announced Monday.
The two winners will each receive a $25 savings bond. Barrett Wright of Frisco and Madison Ed Mounds of Loraine were named the winners of the contest
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RE: More bad news from Sweetwater, TX
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Anonymous post on March 15, 2005
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An article floating around the internet.
-The Phantom
RATTLING AND HUMMING WITH EDNA
An Old Rattlesnake Hunter set out on a Hill Country Hunt
AUSTIN AMERICAN STATESMAN
By Asher Price
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, February 13, 2005
EVANT -- In late winter, 88-year-old Edna McDonald dons a camouflage jacket over her teddy-bear embroidered shirt, grabs her purse and her rattlesnake tongs and heads out on the hunt.
January and February are snake-hunting season for Edna. It's been that way since she started handling the creatures as a babe like some Hill Country Hercules. On Tuesday afternoon, enveloped in a low, cool fog, she leaned on the side of a steep hill, littered with limestone and armadillo holes, and peered into a cleft in a rock with the help of a flashlight.
She had gathered her usual entourage, all packed into a couple of pickups: J.J. Kuzenka, her property caretaker and trusted deputy; DW McDonald, her easily frightened 80-year-old husband from whom a nod is as good as a yes; and Floyd and Frances Parr, who spotted the rattlesnakes on the land they lease to run their cattle.
"When you hear she hunts rattlesnakes you'd think she's got teeth missing or a dirty braid down her back," Frances Parr, 76, said.
But Edna McDonald, who has at least three mirrors in her plush red bathroom, gently adjusts her full head of glossy black curls now and then and sips ice water out of a Styrofoam cup. And chats. (She won, she says repeatedly, a public speaking prize in 1970.)
DW -- those aren't initials; the youngest of 13 children, he was charged with naming himself -- grins about how she wanted to prowl for rattlesnakes on a date: "She was so refined, it surprised me."
At Edna's home, a red brick house off U.S. 84, there's the taxidermied baby snake poised to strike atop her kitchen VCR and a rubber snake peeps out of the trellis. In the living room, a putrid odor seeps from a white bucket beside the sofa. Inside curls a sick snake she's been nursing. The reptile, it later turned out, was dead.
In her barn, in large wooden boxes covered with insulation and matted with hay, she puts her 40 or so snakes to bed. (She raises white mice to feed the snakes.)
She has outlasted much of Evant, a town so small (pop. 393) and left behind that the old school gym, still in use, was a Depression-era project. She has survived her classmates who moved to Dallas, where they traded harder work and fresher air for softer pleasures and look where it's gotten them. She outlived her first husband, whose pains from cancer were eased by a concoction that included snake venom. And, of course, never bitten, she has prevailed over generations of rattlers.
Deep in the cave, a half-dozen rattlesnakes were curled up, hibernating. With the giddiness of a tomboy and a wink or two at the onlookers, she slid a long sprayer into the den while J.J. pumped in gasoline from a two-gallon drum to tease them out. The chemical smell wafted through the dank air.
"Why don't you just strike a match and blow them out?" chuckled Floyd Parr, 78.
As the snakes, one by one, slithered out of the rock, she and Kuzenka, armed with long-handled tongs, grabbed them behind their heads, lightly enough not to snap their vertebrae. The rattlers started vibrating, and soon the snake bucket -- a small, tightly meshed cage -- was buzzing like a forest full of cicadas.
In two weeks she will deposit the snakes into a giant pit at the Oglesby Rattlesnake Roundup, a kind of sensational, old-style carnival where, among other daredevil stunts, one couple will climb into a sleeping bag with dozens of snakes. If Edna's snakes are among the longest, or the shortest, or the heaviest, she will win a cash prize.
Eventually she will sell the snakes, at about $3.50 a pound, to a man who markets them as a delicacy to Dallas country clubs. Edna has tried rattlesnake only once, and she was unimpressed: "It tastes like a cross between chicken and fish."
The practice of collecting snakes with gasoline and the roundups themselves, which also are found in Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Alabama and Georgia, have been roundly criticized by animal rights and environmentalist groups.
The Humane Society claims that the number of livestock deaths from rattlesnake bites is negligible, points out that rattlesnakes control rodent populations and describes the roundups as "cruel and ecologically damaging events" that "violate the most basic principles of wildlife management and humane living."
Investigators have witnessed participants putting coiled snakes with golf clubs and the shutting of snakes' mouths with wire or fishing line so they could be used as props in photos.
At least a pair of roundups in Texas have closed in the past couple of years as the number of hunters has dwindled, said Chris Hamilton, a Dallas photojournalist who is working on a book about the fading culture of the Texas rattlesnake roundups.
"These little roundups were the identities of these towns," he said. "That was their spring festival that gave people a reason to have a parade or a dance."
Edna simply says her work saves cattle and horses from debilitating bites. "What we do is we try to do everything to help the rancher. They're the people who grow groceries, they grow our meat," said Edna, who was "burning up" when she was told she needed a permit to sell the snakes last year.
The state requires any person possessing more than 25 rattlesnakes for commercial sale or trade to buy an $18 nongame permit.
"I don't know what's happened to our Texas," she said. "After a while you'll need to have a permit to have sex."
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RE: More bad news from Sweetwater, TX
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Anonymous post on March 15, 2005
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I think several of us extremely experienced handling individuals should go down and do a testosterone based handle off.... and get us a few red necks bitten, recommend a few fasciotomies and see how fun and studly they really are.... Start daring them to do dumber and dumber things til there are no fingers left!!!
Sounds Good to me
:):(
The Phantom Menace............!
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RE: More bad news from Sweetwater, TX
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by Snake17 on March 16, 2005
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I am severly descused, honestly... I think that people here are more barbaric but we never had such events. Of course, now we don`t even have enough snakes to even think of such a thing. Only 1 species of snake in Romania can easily be found in all parts of the country. All the other species are strictly protected and most are endangered. But I can`t belive that in a modern civilised country like the U.S. stuff like this continues to happen. F****** rednecks ! They kill thousands of rattlers each time or sell them for 3 $ while I`m buying a baby wdb for 120$ here. If they say that it boosts up the echonomy I`m sure a better alternative, a humane alternative can be found. Like shipping the snakes over seas for small prices. I`m sure that all of them would be bought. Now that wouldn`t be a very good solution either cause the echosistem is very affected but it would be better I think than sluttering 5 tones of rattler.
I`m starting to wonder if our world will ever be civilised and if humans will ever become humane... Are there any petitions to be signed against this kind of events ? If not one should be made, on this site even, a petition that should be sent to the propper authoroties not to theese ignorant rednecks.
If we don`t watch out for the worlds snakes, then who ?
Best regards, Alex S.
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