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12,000 pounds of catfish, parades, rodeos, carnival rides, and don't forget the hush puppies.

Hello, I'm Steve Beverly.

On this edition of Tennessee is Talking, the topic is the 71st Annual World's Biggest Fish Fry.

How did it begin, to what's in store this year in Paris.

Let the conversation begin.

That's so cool.

Then that's when I said that-- The problem with that idea is-- Wow, that was amazing-- Then I came up with the solution.

[music playing] What was that about?

Here's what I think about this-- [background conversation] Now we're talking.

West Tennessee PBS presents, Tennessee is Talking.

Let the conversation begin.

Thanks for joining the discussion.

I'm Steve Beverly, and today we're talking about the one and only World's Biggest Fish Fry in Paris.

Joining us are Jennifer Starks and John Casey, who are part of this year's festival.

John is General Manager and Jennifer is with the Paris JC.

It's great to have you both with us.

Thanks for coming.

Let's start with a historical question about the World's Biggest Fish Fry.

How did this actually start?

The roots we understand go back to 1938.

How did it start?

How did we get to where we are today?

Like you said, in 1938, it was initially a meal day where farmers from Paris and surrounding areas would come and trade mules and other farm products, and then it go so big, it was such a community gathering.

In 1953, they actually made it World's Biggest Fish Fry, then we went on and on, then we started growing in 1961 and Jaycees took over.

It's just been growing and evoluting ever since.

We talk about the World's Biggest Fish Fry, and that has been the label.

When I moved to West Tennessee in 1990, that was one of the first things I was told.

"You got to go to the fish fry."

Tell us how that festival has evolved over the years and to what it is right now.

How did we get to the point that we are now?

Well, with the growth of Henry County, and everybody, it grew with it.

I think initially it was the court square.

We had the carnival downtown.

Yes, everything was downtown on our block.

And then it just got so large, where we ended up having to move, rent the fairgrounds, have all that, and we've got the parade that goes down the center of the town and because it's so large now, we had to move everything off the court square.

That's what happens so many times when it just gets a little bigger and a little bigger and it becomes huge.

I know that this has to be something for the economy of the Paris area, but also for all of West Tennessee.

It just brings so many visitors to your area where this is concerned.

Jennifer, you're with the Jaycees, how did they become involved with this event?

The Chamber back in the '60s ended up-- it was too big for them, so they went to the Jaycee organization and asked them to take it over.

When the Jaycee organization took it over, we've had it ever since.

All of the fish fry people that are behind the scenes working are members of the Paris Center County Jaycees, and it's just grown and we've all just kept it going, and of course, we're all volunteers, too.

That's the thing is that so many people don't realize this is an all-volunteer event, and that a lot of you are-- you have your regular jobs that you're doing in addition to being the people who are the movers and shakers of the festival.

Tell me how that really-- how do you find the time to do all of this, John?

Well, a lot of support from my employer, they're very forgiving because we do spend a lot of time, especially in the months prior to the festival.

We've got a lot of support from community, also with sponsors, and the Jaycees, there's about 30 of us.

We come together every April -pretty much to get it done.

-Yes.

I mean, it is a huge undertaking in wherever I have been across the southeast, these events, it's amazing when the communities come together, and they all go for one purpose.

It's just huge as to how you see what it does for the life of the community, as well as just to bring other people in.

Now, this year, April the 20th, and of course we're very happy that we are going to be part of this again this year in carrying the World's Biggest Fish Fry parade right here on West Tennessee PBS, but tell us what is new with this year's event?

We're taking debit cards.

Before it was all cash or check, and we've seen that was an issue, so we are accepting debit cards and credit cards.

We've got a new website that we're proud of getting up with technology I guess, worldsbiggestfishfry.org.

Susan Jones, PR and they helped us get it.

It's going pretty good.

We're having a golf cart entry in the parade this year, which I think I'm pretty excited about it.

I think it'll be something different than just cars and floats, and horses.

Every year you're looking for something else to add to the flavor of the event.

Jennifer, you told us before we went on today about the website itself.

When you go to the website, what do you see?

Well, on the website you're going to have a list of the events that we're hosting.

Also, you'll have different tabs you can look and see.

You can click on a tab and it'll take you to the parade, and it's going to give you information about the parade.

It's got different pictures out there for.. and this is our first year, so we're growing with it.

They've had a lot of patience with us I think because none of us have ever set up a website, so this has been a big undertaking for our group.

Yes, but that is a major when it comes for people being able to see in advance what to do, how to get there.

It's major when you are able to do that.

Now, I got to get into this, because everybody that goes and they eat the fish, how do you go about doing all of this cooking, and getting together all the catfish, the hush puppies, everything that goes with that, how do you get all that together?

We've got some civil organizations and the Mason Lodge, or Masonic Lodge.

They help cook and do the hush buckets.

We've got local businesses serving, they do all the serving the fish.

We've got people waiting in line that want to serve and get the help volunteers.

A lot of community help.

Do you have even a clue as to how much catfish is prepared over that weekend?

-I have 12,000 pounds.

-Woo.

[chuckles] Yes, and I've got actually some other stats.

We do 4,350 pounds of french fries.

2,900 pounds of corn mill for your hush puppies and fish, 3,600 pounds of slaw.

Yes, we go through some products.

Sounds like Grandpa Jones on Hee Haw when he's talking about what's for supper, [laughs] where that's concern.

I want you to tell me, Jennifer, about the community spirit for this event, about volunteers, and about how that part of this works because you can't make an event this successful without volunteers in your community.

Tell us how that works.

Everybody comes out in our community, I think to support us.

I mean, they get ready, they get excited in the month of April.

Of course, you know the schools are out, our local employers pay holiday pay to our employees.

The city gets ready for all of the people that are coming in.

We've got the county that supports us through their volunteer staff.

They help us keep the lawns mowed and stuff like that, especially going to the fairgrounds outside.

There's a lot of different groups.

We start having people wanting to sign up to serve fish in January.

[laughter] All the groups want to sign up I think, and people don'.. that they want to start signing up in January to serve fish.

I don't know whether you can even put your finger on a number, of the number of volunteers that you have.

Is a ballpark figure on that?

It may be tough to put that into a key thing there, but particularly civic groups, church groups, so many of those, all of those involved.

Businesses.

I mean, when we're talking about-- we have all kinds .. that help us with different things and come out when you're looking at the fish tent, or when you're looking at BPU hooking up electricity for us, or coming to make sure something's working.

We just have a lot of cooperation out of the community.

Yes.

This year, I haven't come into anywhere where the business has said, no, I don't think so.

And every question we've asked, it's been a yes throughout the community.

I know it had to be huge for this event because we're-- as we're looking at it right here, we're on about the fourth anniversary that the end of the world came, when we talk about COVID, to come out of that, and be able to get back to what we all have a sense is normal.

It has to be really major to think about, hey, we can do this again, and it's not going to be something that we can't achieve all over .. That had to be tough, though, the year that this event could not be held.

Yes, it was tough.

Yes, we came out of it in '21, and everybody-- it was overwhelming.

Everybody wanted us to have it.

The community, the local leaders, us, everybody wanted Fish Fry back.

They missed the event, they missed seeing all their family and friends, and if you don't know anything about Fish Fry, a lot of people do it as their family homecomings.

They bring everybody in that has moved off, and they come in, and some of them do their own Fish Fry, some do family sittings at the parade.

They go to the rodeos together.

It's pretty cool to see everybody with all their families that they haven't seen in a year.

You just mentioned the rodeo.

I want to get into this because we think about the parade and eating catfish, but what are some of the other activities that you have during the course of that particular week and weekend?

We've got the first event, major event, will be the Demolition Derby on the 20th.

Now, where does that go on at?

At the fairgrounds in our arena.

Same place the rodeo is going to be.

Then we have our kickoff dance, 5K.

What else we got?

We've got the carnival that starts on Tuesday.

We have a Christian concert, a country dance, and the Small Fry Parade for the little kids.

I've been here for 34 years in this community, and seeing all the children who are a part of an event like yours, and then years later to be able to look at video of what it was like to be a part of that, I always say, that's the one that mom or grandmother is going to pull out and embarrass you about when you're 35 years old and show that.

What's the biggest challenge about putting together an event like this?

I would say the manpower and getting everybody coordinated together.

Everybody's busy.

This is nobody's full-time job, and it's just organizing, getting everybody to come together between their busy life schedule.

I think that's one of our biggest struggles.

How about when it comes to looking at what this means to Paris and Henry County?

Because we talk all about the fact that it's a tradition, it's an event, people talk about it, but what does it mean to Paris and Henry County for this event to continue to rise to the top?

Other than the ones you mentioned, tradition and all that, I'd say it supports the revenue of Henry County.

I think people look at us on the map when they start Googling, and they look, the world's biggest fish fry, and then they associate it with Paris, Tennessee.

That's what puts Paris on the map.

Other than our Eiffel Tower, if you Google the world's biggest fish fry, anywhere it's going to show up Paris, Tennessee.

We talked to you, Jennifer, about the JCs.

How deep is their involvement with this, and what do you have as far as the volunteer effort that goes through that organization?

I think there's 30 of us because the JCs are the ones that put on the world's biggest fish fry, so we sponsor it.

There's about 30 of us.

That group comes out and works and takes their vacation time, dedicates.

We have our family members, our kids.

I think we've even had kids taking up tickets and selling stuff and just trying to help us out.

Our JCs are a very strong group.

They're pretty tight-knit, because it takes that because you're spending a lot of time with everybody.

John, when it comes to organizing volunteers, all the little details that you have to go to, how early do you start before the next year's event to begin to get this ball rolling?

I think we get elected for the GM and all that, so I think we get elected end of July or August.

That's about when we start, so from August until a couple months after, until we give it up to the next predecessor.

It starts pretty much 11 months out of the year, we're planning.

How do you go about evaluating-- when the event's over, you've got to have some downtime, you've got to decompress a little bit.

How do you go about evaluating, okay, this went well, this one could be improved on.

How do you go about doing a post-op on what happened with the event, say, this year, and what we will do better next year?

I think we start over when we pass the torch along.

That's when we get together and say, this could've went better last year.

Let's do this.

That's why past GMs are on our board, so we can say, look, this is what went wrong last year, Let's improve this.

Let's add this.

Jennifer, the parade itself is a monumental undertaking for anybody where that's concerned.

How does that all come together, knowing who's going to be in it, getting the floats organized or all of the cars, the different people who ride in it, how does that come together?

To start, our headquarters will open on Saturday, March 30th, correct?

-Yes.

-It's going to open, and then we have a headquarters that's open the month of April.

Monday through Friday, people can go up there and sign up to be in the parade.

They sign up, and they have an entry form.

They'll have car float.

Some of them are marching groups.

Some of them are bands.

The new one, of course, the golf carts.

Then when we get on the parade route, then we get everybody assigned a number, so y'all see it that way too when them coming down the parade route where y'all can see where they are and who they are.

We have multiple people of our JC group that's out there organizing the parade, getting it ready to go.

Of course, we have the city police and the county police and rescue squads that are helping keep people off the parade routes for us too, because there was 70,000 last year, is the estimate.

That's incredible.

It's a lot of people, and you've got a lot of people on the parade, and then we also have our groups that some people are on multiple floats, and a lot of people don't realize that.

They reach out to us trying to get them back at the parade route again, and then you've got to go the back street.

There's a lot behind the scenes and gathering everybody up at the one red light.

John, thinking about this and dovetailing on what Jennifer just said here, when you talk about this influx of people, 70,000 people that are here in the area, it has to be huge for the economic impact in the Paris-Henry County area because all these people come in, they have to go to a restaurant, they have to stay in hotels, whether it's right there or somewhere nearby.

People are spending money there.

That has to be huge as really the offshoot of this event.

Yes, absolutely.

It's going to help continue to grow Paris as the event gets bigger and more revenue.

When you have somebody new that moves into your area and gets involved in a position of leadership, what is it about that gets them involved in the life of the community?

Because you've got new people all the time that get involved.

People that want to give back to the community and be a part of activities and all that.

We always look for volunteers like that.

Jennifer, what is something that people perhaps don't know about the Fish Fry Festival that they might should know?

I think they're a small group.

I don't think people realize that it's all volunteers.

There's not anybody paid for this.

We take off work and we go and we set up and we clean up and we contact everybody.

We go through a lot that people don't realize is behind the scenes, making sure you got your permits and stuff like to have your parade downtown.

The contacts that we make, making sure there's garbage cans everywhere.

People just don't realize all the little phone calls that we make about everything.

It has to be because we're talking about attention to detail and so many things that people don't realize to put on an event like that makes people want to come back next year.

Let's talk about how in the course of all of this, what do you do that's an intangible maybe that makes people want to come back next year when you do this?

Just thinking about what thing do you-- what's the tone that you want to set about Paris and Henry County that makes people want to come back to this year after year?

I think the friendly environment.

I think people like to see everybody out there at the fairgrounds.

I think that they like to see all of us.

I think that they want to see their community representation.

They want to be able to see their family, their friends.

People they haven't seen in years.

They get to go on the fish tent.

They love the fish tent.

They love to see those posters on the walls with the kids that have colored and did a contest and who the winners were.

They stand in line.

Last year they stood in line for hours and we ran out of fish.

We cooked all the fish we had.

The determination, it was-- we went out there and told them there may be a possibility when you get up here there may not be any fish.

They didn't get out of line?

No.

They said, "We'll risk it."

We've ordered, what?

An extra thousand pounds of catfish this year?

People don't realize how fast that goes.

Going back to making people want to come back and improvements, we have improved our line.

I think last year we were overwhelmed with the number of people that were coming at different spurts.

It was inconvenient.

We didn't plan for it.

We've cleared out sections for them so it's more convenient.

It protects from the weather as much as we can.

I think it's going to be more organized, the lines are.

I want to get back to the spirit of volunteerism because it does make this event what it is.

How do you and how does the organization itself, the JCs, everybody else, how do you go about a line of succession for people to learn the ropes about it and then the next year they move into a different job?

How does that work?

Right now I'm GM and she's assistant GM.

She's learning off of what we're doing this year and that pours into next year.

Whoever the assistant next year is she'll show them the ropes and that's the way it goes on and on.

We try to get new board members every year just so they learn and see all the attention details that we go through.

How far down does that go from not just the General Manager and Assistant General Manager, but how far down does that go about people learning different areas to make this thing work?

There's six on the board and then you add on the JC President.

There's six or seven on the board.

There's usually seven down but like she said we're close-knit.

The JC organization, when we all get together they see the struggles we're having and they see what we're doing and hopefully, some of the younger people are learning from what we're doing and carry on.

I think the other thing is you really want them on that board for three years.

I think the learning curve because as assistant, you're learning and then as GM you're doing and as the past, you've done it so those three together, I mean-- and if you go through all three positions by the time you get to the past GM then hopefully, that next group is learning everything that these groups have learned previous.

We've got just a little bit more than 45 seconds left so remind everyone where people can find out more about this year's Fish Fry in advance.

World'sbiggestfishfry.org.

It's our new website and the list of events, times, dates, sign-up forms, it'll all be on there.

Contact information.

Our telephone number.

Our telephone number is 731-644-1143.

I want to tell you this has been fun to learn about the inside and the inner workings of the World's Biggest Fish Fry and I am so delighted that we're going to be part of that this year again with West Tennessee PBS.

John Casey, Jennifer Starks, thank you so much for being with us.

We appreciate it and we are hoping for another great festival again.. -Thanks for having us.

-Thank you.

Remember you can stream today's program, Tennessee is Talking and all local channel 11 programs on the PBS app, the West Tennessee PBS YouTube channel, and on westtnpbs.org and you can keep the conversation going by following West Tennessee PBS on social media.

I'm Steve Beverly, thank you for joining us.

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