Big Crowd See Annual Fiddle Fete

At Athens

Big Crowd Sees Annual Fiddle Fete

Special to The News

Athens, Texas, May 29. - A crowd estimated at 10,000 spread cots and blankets on the sunny courthouse lawn here Friday and settled down to let the resin fly in a day and night of fiddling at the annual old fiddlers reunion and home-coming. 

Right off, T.J. Foley of Jewett captured first prize money in the fiddler division for players older than sixty-five. Cas Hopson of Athens took second place, and F. C. Foley of Corsicana third. 

1. A. Looney of Jacksonville, last year’s winner, was the oldest participant in that division. The 92 year old fiddler entered as his two selections a breakdown, “Soldiers Joy” and Dallas Waltz.” He failed to place. 

Red Carter of Houston captured first in the under sixty-five division Friday afternoon, with Toby Junell of Flat taking second prize money. J. P. Davis of Mabank was third. 

The speaker was Ralph Yarborough, Austin attorney. he was introduced by County Atty. Jack Hardee. 

Yarborough, a former resident of Henderson County and an unsuccessful candidate for Governor last year, has been rumored as a candidate for that office again next year. But he made no reference to his plans. Fiddle day speeches by precedent are nonpolitical. 

Additional hundreds of spectators crowded the square in the cool of the night for entertainment by the winning hands and specialty and novelty acts and a square dance directed by Mrs. C. H. Nash and Quincy Bedsole, both of Athens, 

Fiddlers came from the four corners of the state for this city’s annual revival of pioneer music. Among the over sixty-five fiddlers were Jack Smith of Lexington; C. R. Hall of Mesquite; E. H. Mitchell of Corpus Christi; C. T. Miller of Tyler; A. N. Purvis, S. C.; Hobbs and Troy Landrum, all of Dallas; Bill Flannigan of Corsicana; John F. Murdock of Rusk; Robert Hopson of Fort Worth; B. F. Logan of Big Spring; Alton Mead of Kingsville, and Jeff Brooks of Grand Prairie. 

Some of them, like Cas Hopson, have been playing long before the reunion was organized twenty years ago. his fiddle, passed on to him by his father, has traveled all over the south and north. His father was a Confederate veteran and took his fiddle with him during the Civil War. When the war ended, Hopson’s father and his wife came to Athens before the town was established. 

“The competition has gotten stiffer and so have my fingers,” Hopson said. “I don’t expect to win anything today. They will beat me mad. But I’ll be there fiddling just because I like it.” He place second. 

Dallas Morning News

Saturday, May 30, 1953