Egg fighters came from as far away as Cleveland, Ohio, to compete in the 191st Peters Hollow Egg Fight.
From boiling eggs with onion peels to feeding their chickens undisclosed mixtures of feeds and minerals, this year’s 64 contestants all used different methods to harden the shells of their most prized eggs.
“If I told you I would have to kill you,” said Hannah Colbaugh after being asked what her secret was to having the hardest egg.
Colbaugh outlasted 26 other contestants, each armed with up to six dozen eggs, to win the 13-and-up division.
Norman Peters says that he has been involved in the yearly egg fight for 71 years. Every year the event is held in his backyard, and he says that there is never a bad turnout.
According to Peters, the tradition stems from a decades-old competition between local farmers.
“The farmers in Roam Holler challenged the farmers in Peters Hollow to see whose chickens laid the hardest eggs,” said Peters. “So, it just became something they did every Easter Sunday morning.”
In the birth-to-3-year-old division, Emma Sams took first place and Katie Wilson took 1st runner-up; in the 4- to 6-year-old division, Seth Henry was the winner and Jazmun Carver was 1st runner-up; in the 7- to 12-year-old division, Wes Shankles took first place while Christopher White was 1st runner-up; and in the 13-and-up division, Hannah Colbaugh was the champion and Wendy Honeycutt was 1st runner-up.