Davis has no problem describing himself as a redneck. He has a dog named Bubba. He loves to eat fried rabbit. His Chevy pickup has a homemade hood ornament of an anatomically correct bulldog (unquestionably male).
Still, he’s flummoxed that the Redneck Games have found such a large audience.
“They’re so dang silly,” Davis said. “Every year it’s so hot, four or five people fall down from heat exhaustion. All they’ve got is porta-potties, and they smell so bad you’ve got to hold your breath until you get out.”
Frank L. Fraser, publisher of Redneck World magazine, sees the games as another example — alongside the popularity of country music, NASCAR and the comedy television show “Blue Collar TV” — of folks embracing their inner good-ole-boy without the baggage of racist stereotypes.
“When I first started, a redneck is a guy whose dadgum hobby is hanging people from trees,” said Fraser, who estimates his magazine has 350,000 readers in 43 states. “Most rednecks I know are just hard-working people who like barbecues and the outdoors.”
Kidd says some locals, “the country-club people,” have looked down on the Redneck Games as giving Laurens County a backward image of dirt roads and outhouses.
Many have stopped sneering, he said, because its hard to bash proceeds from the $5 admission going to the East Dublin Lions Club and the economic spillover to local businesses.
Willie Paulk, president of the Laurens County Chamber of Commerce, said no economic impact studies have been done on the Redneck Games, though she says it’s the third-largest public event in the county, behind the St. Patrick’s Day celebration in neighboring Dublin and the Possum Hollow arts and crafts festival in nearby Dexter.
“While we appreciate the novelty of the Redneck Games, I don’t think it should be looked at as the sole determinant in labeling a county,” Paulk said. “So far it hasn’t stopped our industries from locating here, which is wonderful.”
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