Toad Suck Daze

Toad Suck Daze is an annual community music, arts and food festival in Conway, Arkansas, which has been celebrated for a quarter of a century.

Overview

The Toad Suck Daze festival is one of the largest of its kind in Arkansas, attracting tens of thousands of visitors each year. Notable attractions at the event include music, crafts, a variety of food, carnival rides, and Toad Races, in which visitors race either home-brought or community-bred toads on a modified race course. The festival raises money to give educational scholarships. In 2006, $50,000 was contributed toward scholarships.

History

First organized in 1982, the festival is held annually in downtown Conway, Arkansas, during the first weekend in May. Originally held at Toad Suck Park near the Arkansas River Lock and Dam, the festival was moved to the downtown location in 1990 due to flooding at the river and has remained in the downtown area ever since.

Name Origin

The legend behind Toad Suck is that long ago, steamboats traveled the Arkansas River when the water was at the right depth. When it wasn't, the captains and their crew tied up to wait where the Toad Suck Lock & Dam now spans the river near Conway. While they waited, they refreshed themselves at the local tavern. The dismayed folks living nearby were heard to say: "They suck on the bottle 'til they swell up like toads." Hence, the name Toad Suck. The tavern is long gone, but the legend lives on at Toad Suck Daze.

References to Toad Suck Daze in Popular Culture

On the February 15th, 2007 edition of The Colbert Report, the daily installment of the 434-part "Better Know a District" segment featured the Arkansas' Second District Congressman Vic Snyder, where Toad Suck Daze was discussed heavily, in which Stephen Colbert and the Congressman established through Colbert's questions that "toad sucking is a family event."

During the 1995 festival, Toad Suck Daze made an appearance on The Tonight Show. Edd Hall, announcer for The Tonight Show, reported from Toad Suck Daze and interacted with Jay Leno, who was in studio during the segment.

External links

* [http://www.toadsuck.org/ Toad Suck Daze] official website