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[music] It's all about home -The World's Biggest Fish Fry revolves around fried catfish dinners.

12,000 pounds to be exact.

Parades, dancing, rodeos, fishing, and more.

Hello, I'm Peter Noll.

On this edition of Tennessee is Talking, the topic is t..

This longstanding celebration began as Mule Day in 1938.

After Kentucky Lake was formed, it became the World's Biggest Fish Fry, a celebration of fishing, food, and friends.

Let the conversation begin.

-We are rolling.

Confirm record.

Can we get a mic check?

-Check, check.

-Stand by camera 2, take 2.

Stand by announcer in three, two.

-West Tennessee PBS presents, Tennessee is Talking.

Let the conversation begin.

-Thanks for joining the discussion here on Tennessee is Talking.

Hello, I'm Peter Noll.

The World's Biggest Fish Fry is a week long festival th.. a carnival, a grand parade, rodeo and catfish races.

Yes, you heard that correctly.

Here to tell us more is Jennifer Starks.

You are general manager of this year's fish fry?

-Yes, I am.

-Chris Martin.

You are assistant- -Yes, sir.

--general manager?

Kayla Casey, and you're president of the Jaycees, the group that puts this whole festival together?

-Yes, sir.

-Thank you all for joining us.

Let's start out with what is new at this year's fish fry.

-I think the biggest thing that we've got this year is a permanent headquarters.

That's been a new adventure for all of us.

We've been setting up our new headquarters.

It's on Eastwood Street.

It's across from the Church of Christ.

The building there, we have taken that building.

We've set up everything from phone lines to our computer systems.

We actually have a place now that's permanent, so we're not having to move all of our souvenirs each time.

One of the things that a lot of people don't realize is we were always having to ask for a place to have our fish fry headquarters.

Dinkins Mobile Homes was always graciously giving us a place to have.

Then we would have different people in the city, they'd give us property to put it on.

-That really must make things a whole lot easier, but really make things a lot more official.

-I think so.

Then it's going to allow us at Christmas time to b.. "Hey, we're open if you need some World's Biggest Fish Fry tire for Christmas as gifts and stuff."

Usually, we have people that are calling all year long that are coming in from different countries and different states and they're wanting fish fry stuff.

We're thinking this will be get better for everybody.

-Congratulations.

-Thank you.

We're excited.

-Let's start at the very beginning.

How did this fish fry-- World's Biggest Fish Fry begin?

-It started on Mule Day in Paris in- -1938.

--1938.

Then it grew from that and the chamber took it over and did the World's Biggest Fish Fry.

That was in 1950s?

-1953.

-'53.

Then in 1961, the Paris-Henry County Jaycees took it over from the chamber.

It had grown so much they couldn't hand.. We took it over as a group in '61.

-Kayla, president of the Jaycees, I'm a member of the Jackson Rotary Club, a civic organization of volunteers.

That's a big undertaking.

How did the Jaycees come to take this over and do very well?

-The Jaycees have had it since 1961.

64 years we've had this fish fry and done it successfully.

We are just a group of community members that like to volunteer.

There's about 50 of us right now.

It's just really important to us to develop our community.

Service is one of our core values.

It's important for all of us to take it on.

Then we come together every year like a family and we just get it done.

It's a lot of work behind the scenes that nobody really understands that we start planting fish fry in September- -September.

--of each year.

It takes a lot of teamwork to do it.

-Now you said 64 years that the Jaycees have been doing it.

That's older than all of us.

-Yes, it is.

[laughter] -You guys have grown up with the fish fry.

-I did.

I grew up in Paris.

Didn't you?

You didn't.

-I didn't grow up there.

-You did, Kayla, did you, and La.. -I grew up in Big Sandy.

Real close to Paris.

Fish fry was always a big part of our life.. -Tell us about how big of a deal this is to the community of Paris, and really all of Henry County.

-I think the growth last year shows it.

The city gave us information on the attendance at our events.

There was 51,000 people at the parade.

To compare it to our Henry County, I think there was around 32,000 people in Henry County.

We almost doubled the size in bringing people in to the parade.

The people that are coming in, it's really neat.

We had a lady last year that saw the new website and she lived in Seattle, Washington.

She got a red eye, flew into Nashville, drove from Nashville to Paris to have catfish on Thursda.. Then drove back to Nashville on Thursday night and flew out Friday morning.

-Wow.

-It's pretty neat.

It's amazing now that we've grown so much.

Adding in social media, that was another we did last year.

Then with our website, the advertisements that are out there now and the growth of it is bringing in a lot of people.

We have a fish fry phone year round.

The phone is rung nonstop.

We have it and we have to call everybody back.

We try to get back to everybody as fast as we can and stuff.

Since we're all volunteers, we have-- -Is it shaped like a fish?

-No, not yet.

[laughs] We might need to find one of those.

-Do you call it like the bat phone, the fish fry phone?

-That might be a good nickname for it after we get through with the fish year.

-It's a really big part of our heritage as a community.

-How much economically does the fish fry mean to the community?

-For Henry County, I would think it's one of the major-- -It is the largest.

-The largest for the year for us.

We are figuring what, 100,000 people?

It's the largest one we have, I think, locally.

-How is it financed?

You guys are all volunteers.

How old is the fish fry?

How do you pay for all of this?

-Of course, we have to have startup money every year.

We hope that we don't have a lot of rain.

[laughter] -I think that's the bigges.. -Yes.

In each year we have to have so much money to start up with, and then we just continue like that.

Then we have to-- we're like everybody else, cost of fish goes up, the cost of porta-potties go up.

Everything we have went up in the last, what, three years?

It's gone up a lot.

We just have to try to cut cost and save as much as we can, and we volunteer.

Nobody's getting paid.

-You are all volunteers, but you all have real jobs that are p.. How do you balance volunteering with this huge event and your real jobs?

-Like I said, we're a pretty big family.

We all have our own families that join in too.

We call them our Fish Fry Guppies.

All of our kids are raised up into this too and help out as well.

We all just help each other manage each day because we all do work till 5:00 and jump off and go to work at fish fry.

[chuckles] -I think also our employers.

If it wasn't for our employers working with us, I don't think we could do it.

They like to see us out there volunteering and doing all this and working-- -Represents the company really well.

-Where do you all work?

-I work at Commercial Bank & Trust.

-Chris?

-Martins Construction.

-Carey Counseling Center.

-One thing I have noticed getting fish fry, the catfish, my favorite is the hushpuppies.

Last year I also got just a plate of hushpuppies that I brought back to the new Hampton Inn.

It's relatively new, right?

-Yes.

-The people are all volunteering that work there, and they're groups from banks, there's group of insurance companies, people are running the hushpuppies, some people are doing the catfish, some people are doing the beverage center, but they're all volunteers.

That just speaks of the community pride people take in this event.

-They start getting on that wait list in January of each year to serve fish.

It's a really big thing for all of our businesses to jump in and do that and different civic organizations.

They really battle that out on who gets to do it.

-You don't change spots.

[chuckles] -No.

-Everybody has their favorite spot that they've done for 20 y..

It's in a two-hour increment, and so you know every year on that Thursday night from 5:00 to 7:00, Commercial Bank is going to have their employees there serving fish and serving drinks.

Then Security Bank will have theirs.

We have multiple just designated groups, and we have a waiting list now this year for people wanting to serve.

-That speaks a lot to the community's love for the World's Biggest Fish .. Where does all this fish, hushpuppy, where does all that come from?

-US Foods.

-US Foods.

-Drew comes and helps us and gets us set up, and they bring a semi-truck load and two?

Don't they usually have to pull one in and out or something?

-No, it's just one trailer.

-One trailer?

-They bring one trailer with all the.. and then one trailer's full of fish.

-The hushpuppies.

Is there a secret hushpuppy recipe?

-We don't know it.

[laughter] -It's secret.

-It's secret.

It is secret.

-We hear if you get there on certain times, there might be some jalapenos in there on some of them.

-Oh.

What's the-- is that like an off-menu orderi.. -I think they'll take them out in the line while people are waiting in the line and give them one.

-Okay.

We have so many new people that are moving into West Tennessee.

Tell us where this is, where you go.

-Paris, Tennessee, at the Henry County Fairgrounds.

-Henry County Fairgrounds, and it's called the Fish Tent, but it's a building, right?

-Yes.

It actually started as a fish tent.

-Yes, it was a fish tent, dirt floors.

-Back in the day?

-Back in the day.

-Not too long ago, really.

-When did the building come about?

-When they got a grant for a new building, and health codes got a little stricter, and we used to have pipes running on grounds.

It was a lot different than it is now.

-It's good catfish no matter what, and its longevity speaks to how good it is, and people coming you said from Seattle, Washington, and people come from all over the world.

Have you heard of anyone else having a catfish event like this?

-I don't think at this size or magnitude.

Have y'all?

-Not that I know of.

-Not that I know of.

-The only other one I know is Texas.

-Texas does something, but I don't think it's as large as ours.

-Do you have to explain to people from outside when you're visiting relatives, or talking to people from outside West Tennessee about what this is?

-Just to give you a funny, I was setting up the Wi-Fi at the new building, and when you tell them that it's for the World's Biggest Fish Fry, you can imagine-- they don't believe you at first.

Then they'll say, "Well, let's make sure about this," and then they'll go to the website and look and they're like, "Oh, you really are telling the truth" because everything's in the World's Biggest Fish Fr..

It's been interesting setting up new stuff in that name.

-Let's talk about this year.

What's new this year?

What are the big events?

Walk us through the schedule, because it's a week-long of activities, correct?

-We're going to start on the S.. We'll start with the Hushpuppy Dash.

They'll be out at the fairgrounds.

You'll have that, and we'll have the car and bike show on that Saturd.. -The Hushpuppy Dash, for our viewers out there who don't know, what is that?

-It's a 5-mile K run and a 1-mile walk.

Then at the same time, there's a car show going on, and a bike show going .. and we've actually moved that to the high school stadium parking lot.

We outgrew where we were last year, so we had to move that.

Then two new events this year that we've added.

One is the Catfish Clash of Boxing, and it's the youth boxing, and it's going to be downtown on the court square.

-That's called what?

-Catfish Clash.

-Clash.

-It's actually going to be on.. unless it rains.

If it rains, we're going to move it to th..

Right now, they're blocking off the downtown for that.

Then the next one that we're going to have at the same time is Fish Fry Fling, and it's a golf disc tournament.

-Where is the golf disc?

-It's going to be-- in the morning, it'll start at McNeill Park, and then it's going to go to the Eiffel Tower Park at one o'clock that day for the-- I guess they'd be the second winners.

They take the winners and then they do the final competition.

We're still learning on those two.

Then, of course, on Saturday night, we have the Demolition Derby, which is always a favorite.

-That's at?

-The Henry County Fairgrounds.

Chris is actually the chairman of it.

We have a lot of people that come in for that.

It's always a big draw, a big crowd, and the kids love it.

If you've never seen a Demolition Derby, I suggest everybody needs to go to one, just one time.

-That's Wednesday night?

-That's on that Saturday night.

-Saturday night, okay.

-On that Saturday, you've actu.. Then after all that on Monday, we'll start with our street dance.

At seven o'clock downtown, we'll block off the streets again.

Then on Tuesday, we'll have the country dance at the fairgrounds, and it'll be in one of the buildings.

Then on Wednesday night, we actually have the Christian concert that's out at the fairgrounds.

Of course, that also kicks off the fish tent.

That's the big one.

Wednesday night starts everything.

We'll start with the throwing of the hushpuppy or the-- -Tell us about that event.

-The hostess princess chooses who she wants to throw the hushpuppy to.

-That's the pageant?

-Yes.

-Okay.

-Our hostess princess will choose-- a lot of times I'd say they choose their dads, don't they?

Don't y'all agree?

-Yes.

-That's what kicks it off.

-They choose their dad to throw out-- -The hushpuppy.

They're really throwing a hushpuppy.

-Where do they throw them?

At a crowd?

-No, they throw it to their dad.

They choose somebody.

-The hostess princess throws it to their dad, okay.

-Or to whoever they choose.

That's like our kickoff.

-Do they always catch it?

-No.

Some of them will swing it like a softball .. [laughter] -Just depends.

-Now, and it's funny because a lot of them practice it before they come up there.

-Now, is it a fresh out-of-the-oil hushpuppy?

-It's the first hushpuppy, yes.

-Okay.

-That's a big one.

Of course, I did leave off the carnival on Tuesday night, so the carnival kicks off on Tuesday night- -At the fairgrounds.

--at the fairgrounds.

Then we also have our arts and craft vendors outside on Wednesday.

Then Thursday night, we'll have the carnival, the arts and crafts, and the fish tent going.

Then, of course, on Friday, the big parade at 10:00.

Of course, we start downtown, and we'll block off the streets at nine o'clock.

-For people that have been going to the parade, the police department has-- there's some new rules this year, correct?

-Yes.

The city police they're not allowing cars parked on the side of the road this year.

That was their decision for safety and security.

Then after the parade, of course, the fish tent opens back up again.

Then Friday and Saturday night, we'll have the Bulls & Barrels Championship out there at the rodeo, out there at the fairgrounds too.

It's a lot that we've got going on.

-A lot.

You mentioned a website.

All this is on your website?

-Yes.

-What is that website address?

-world'sbiggestfishfry.

You can go to .com, .org, or .net.

-You covered all your bases?

-We got all of them.

-Yes.

-world'sbiggestfishfry.org, .com, .. -Yes.

-Yes.

-Okay.

That's great.

-We'll have different posts out there on soc.. We're putting everything together.

Saturday's our grand opening at ten o'clock in Paris.

We're opening up the new building.

We're excited about that.

Then we'll kick everything off and give out the new souvenir books for 2025.

That will be new this-- -Are the souvenir books for sale or you just pick-- -They're free.

-Free?

Okay.

That has the schedule of everything?

-Yes.

They'll be out there this week.

-All the events that you guys have mentioned, are those free?

Is there a cost to attend?

-The derby's a cost.

-The derby's a cost.

Rodeo's a cost.

-Carnival.

-The carnival.

The Fish Tent.

-I think the Christian concert.

-They do a donation.

-Then the parade you pay.

-The country dance is free.

-The parade you pay an entry fee for the different categories you want to go on to.

-To be in it.

Just to come with your family-- -I think a lot of them and I did leave off about [?]

actually is pretty cool for the kids because you've got the small fry parade, and then the catfish races at 11:00, and then you- -Catfish races.

Tell us about that.

How does that work?

-What are those?

Troughs?

-Yes.

-They have troughs .. -Do the catfish have names or numbers, or how do you-- -Oh, yes.

They take it serious.

-They write bios on the catfish.

The local organizations will write a bio, and they'll submit it, and they'll actually read them out during the event.

Then they'll have a winner, and they win for their organization, but the money goes to the Real Hope Center.

-Do you bet then?

-I hope not.

[laughs] Do we?

-I didn't know how this works.

-Come on.

-I've never thought about it, have we?

-Okay.

Maybe in Vegas they do.

-Surely, they don't have that only in Vegas, do they?

Then we got the Junior Fishing Rodeo that's free for all the kids, and all the kids get prizes and everything else.

-Where does that take place?

-At William's Lake.

-William's Lake.

-Kayla's the chairman of that one.

-They're totally free.

On your website, worldsbiggestfishfry.com, .org, .net, where is all the applications if people want to partake in this?

-It's going to be on our website and then of course they'll always be at our fish fry headquarters.

We can also email them, if we needed to, to somebody and then they can just bring their phones up there.

-Contact information's on your .. -The pageants, you mentioned the hostess princess, those have already been chosen.

Those started back in February?

-We actually did it this year in January.

We did something new this year, we did all of our pageants in one day and it was a lot but I think it was good for us.

-It went really smooth.

-It was really smooth for the first time d.. We have about 150-plus that participate in them all day.

-Can you announce who the big hostess princess?

-Anne Claire Collins is our hostess princess this year and so she's going to represent us.

We'll go next week, we take the young ladies to Nashville and we go to the.. on Thursday and we're going to go down there and they'll go on the floor and they get to invite everybody to the World's Biggest Fish Fry.

-They really have ambassador role to not only Paris, Henry County, but the festival?

-Yes.

That's why we want them to be able to speak.

We want them to be able to go out there and talk to people about it.

They're representing us and they get to go out and do some pretty neat things.

I think this year they're doing-- what's their community development project?

-They're doing a new or gently used book drive to donate books to the schools, the local Henry County schools.

-Every year the princess and the court, they do a community betterme.. -Yes.

-Okay, wow.

-The.. -Has there always been a pageant associated with the fish fry?

-At first it was Tennessee Valley back when it was Mule Day and then it went to the Hostess Princess pageants.

The Hostess Princess pageants and they've always been Henry County young ladies only.

That's been really different coming up in the pageant worlds with different people and they're like, "Well, y'all don't allow out-of-county participants."

They're correct, but we want the girls from Henry County to represent Henry County.

They go out and talk and represent us on everything that they do.

-What is one thing about the World's Biggest Fish Fry that most people don't know?

-I think probably the amount of man hours that it takes to put it on and how few of us that do it and how much work it is behind the scenes and that we're all volunteers.

I think that's a big part that they don't understand.

We always encourage people to get involved in the community.

-How many Jaycee members do you have?

-Right now, about 50.

-Is the World's Biggest Fish Fry one of the main projects of the Henry County Paris Jaycees?

-It is probably our biggest project that we do year-round, but we have several other projects we do every year too.

We do a shopping tour on Christmas.

For all the city kids that are underprivileged, we take them Christmas shopping.

We do participate in our Spooktacular and the local fair and just any other events that are going on in the community that we can participate in, we do.

-If people want to, that are maybe not going to be able to come this year, they're watching from out of state or they're watching this program and they're not going to be able to be at this year's for health reasons or they're shut in, can they still buy a t-shirt, buy souvenirs on your website?

-It might be in the future, but that's a good suggestion for us.

-Especially now that we've got a permanent home for our souvenirs.

-The headquarters will open up Monday officially.

Cindy will be there from 9:00 to 5:30, same lady that operated it last year, she's going to do it again this year for us.

-Okay.

Then during the actual fish fry, there was some tables in the Fish Tent Building that had all the t-shirts .. That will still be there, but people can go to your permanent new home as well?

-Yes.

-You mentioned that it brings in-- for the parade day, you had numbers saying 50,000 people.

Must be triple that throughout the entire week.

-I would think so.

There's a lot of people that start coming in on Saturday and then you think about all the families that return home.

A lot of people come back home for fish fry week to be with their families and friends and go and do some of the events.

I think a lot of them- especially in Henry County, you see a lot of people on Thursday and Friday nights with their family coming out there.

-Of all the events that you guys have mentioned, each of you tell me what your favorite event is.

Kayla?

-The Junior Fishing Rodeo, it's my absolute f.. Getting these kids outside and getting them interested in fishing, because you can just hear, "I got one," just shouted all over that pond.

You can see it when they come up to get their fish weighed and check it in, the excitement.

A lot of them, you've hooked for life on it.

-Chris?

-Golf tournament.

-Do you play in the golf tournament or are you just helping run it?

-Yes, I'm a scratch golfer.

I scratch my head a lot every time I go [?]

[laughter] -I think for me, I always loved the parade.

Even growing up, I got to be in the parade because I was from Par.. You know when you're little and you're going with your family and stuff.

It's neat now being behind the scenes of it, so I'd say the parade.

-Remind us the dates of this year's Fish Fry.

-This Saturday, April 19th through Sunday the 27th, I think.

April 27th.

-For total schedule of the events and if people need applications or how to get involved?

-Go to the worldsbiggestfishfry.com.

You can call the headquarters at 731-644-1143, talk to Cindy up there.

-Or come to the new headquarters.

-You can come to the new headquarters.

-That addr.. -711 Eastwood Street.

-In Paris.

-In Paris.

-It basically shuts down on Saturday.

The carnival's open on Sunday.

That way people's not showing up to eat catfish Sunday.

Then we have to tell them they have to leave.

-Now, I will say that that's probably one of the hardest things for us is to make sure that everybody understands that we start selling catfish on Wednesday at 5:00 and we stop on Saturday night at 9:00, unless we run out.

-Correct.

-We have run out before.

-Get there early.

-Get there early and get in line.

Everybody says that's a long line, but the line moves pretty fast.

-It does.

It does.

Tour t-shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies, you guys have the best selection and they have big boy sizes, which is impressive, and being a big boy.

-We've got some tall gentlemen in our organization, so we got to make sure that they've got nice stuff too.

-Jennifer, Chris, Kayla, thank you so much for coming in.

Channel 11 is excited to be there again this year.

Thank you for coming in and telling us about it.

Congratulations on your new permanent home.

-Thank you.

We're excited.

-If you want t.. or share it with a friend or family member, it can be streamed anytime on the PBS App, along with all local Channel 11 programs.

You can also watch it on westnpbs.org.

Keep the conversation going by following West Tennessee PBS on social media.

I'm Peter Noll.

Until next time, keep on talking, Tennessee.

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[music]