Every year, in Yellville, Ark., a low flying-plane drops turkeys across the town and people celebrating a festival called Turkey Trots try to catch as many as they can.
Bluegrass musician Samuel Koffy has performed music at the festival for several years.
“It’s just a celebration of the turkey … They have a turkey calling contest and a turkey dinner,” Koffy said. “They have all these booths set up in the square and there will be 20- to 30,000 people there on the weekend. It’s always the second weekend of October.”
The climax of the event is the turkey drop.
“You know most turkeys can’t fly, but they get into a gliding pattern and they land in someone’s yard,” Koffy said. “The plane flies real slow, you see, so most of them can glide down and they’re not hurt.”
Celebrators of the festival know there is a general rule that if you can catch the turkey, you can have it.
“It was probably 20 years ago the first time I played [music] there, but anyhow, the first time we played there was in the afternoon, and all the sudden I noticed everyone was looking up and everyone was leaning,” Koffy said. “These kids were leaning like they were fixing to take off running. Then finally I saw this person leaning out an airplane, and they dropped a turkey. Then everyone took off running. And 20 minutes later I see this kid running around with a turkey.”
The turkeys do not always remain safe.
“A couple of them have crashed into the side of the courthouse,” Koffy said. “One of them this year hit somebody’s car; crashed into the windshield. I don’t know how they described that to the insurance company.”
Some people believe turkey dropping is inhumane.
“There was an article in The National Enquirer awhile back,” Koffy said. “The humane society was trying to shut them down.”
Others take a lighter approach to the matter, and in 1978, Cinncinnati’s WKRP aired a show based on Turkey Trots. In the show, the main character, a newscaster, watched a faux turkey drop.
With recorded laughter in the background, he exclaimed, “Oh my God, they’re turkeys! Oh, Johnny, did you get this? They’re plunging to the earth right before our eyes … Oh, the inhumanity!”
Turkey Trots, however, is not just about turkeys.
“And my wife, she was always into pageants. It must have been 15 years ago she entered, but, anyways, there’s a beauty pageant associated with it,” Koffy said. “I think they call it the Miss Drumstick contest. It’s one of the preliminaries to the Miss Arkansas contest.”
The concept may seem strange to people not native to Yellville.
“My friends from South Dakota and other parts don’t believe me when I tell them about Turkey Trot,” Koffee said. “I don’t even know why exactly they do it, but I know they have been doing it for a long time. I think this is about the 67th or 68th year. It’s a real weird deal.”
Turkey Trots is important to Yellville’s economy.
“It brings a lot of money to the town during that weekend,” Koffy said. “People crawl out from under the rocks to go to Turkey Trot.”
