Skip Navigation

Search»
 


Fancy Farm 2007:
Pork, Pie and Politics

Watch the Video
Highlights Program
(Windows Media® or RealVideo®)

Every year since the early 1880s, St. Jerome Catholic Church in the small town of Fancy Farm, near Mayfield in Graves County, has hosted an annual community picnic. It was a local affair at first, where people gathered to eat Western Kentucky barbecue and enjoy some regional entertainment. But at some point, political candidates began to see the Fancy Farm Picnic as a good chance to meet, greet, and stump for votes. Soon a platform for speaking was added, and by the middle of the 20th century, Fancy Farm had become the unofficial kickoff event for the fall campaigns.

These days at Fancy Farm, picnic volunteers serve up tons of barbecue (pork and the regional favorite, mutton) while crowds gather at the speakers’ platform to cheer—or jeer—their chosen candidates. In the gubernatorial election year of 2007, KET’s cameras were at the picnic site all weekend to bring you this uniquely American form of political theater both on the air and online:


Webcast Video

On Saturday afternoon, August 4, KET presented a live webcast of the political speeches. You can watch it as it happened (approx. 2 hours 25 minutes), or choose a segment below. The speakers are listed in the order in which they spoke.


Welcome

Legislators

McConnell

Fletcher

Beshear

Rudolph

Mongiardo

Hendrickson

Grayson

Luallen

Greenwell

Stumbo

Lee

Conway

Smith

Farmer

Hollenbach

Wheeler

For more information on the picnic, see the Fancy Farm web site.



600 Cooper Drive | Lexington, KY 40502 | (859) 258-7000 | (800) 432-0951