| The Liar's Contest was held this past weekend at the Vandalia Gathering in Charleston.
In 2000, Creston area resident Gary Buchanan, turned up with a whopper, and he was among the winners.
Here is one of Buchanan's most outstanding lies, recorded forever:
Howdy, you all, I'm sure glad that I'm here, and I'm sure glad you're here, too. I'm pretty glad they got this West Virginia
air-conditioning going, ain't you? Don't worry about what this fellow told you my name was because I lied to him.
I'm going to tell you something here today that's going to be very sad. So, if you all want to get out your hankies now just go
ahead because it's terrible. I'll wait on you.
I raise hogs. Anybody else out here raise hogs? Well, if you did, you'd know me because I raise the best hogs in the whole
state of West Virginia. The reason I raise such good hogs is cause I treat them so nice.
Well, I don't keep them penned up in the barn. I don't even have a small pen for them. I got a gigantic plot for them to run in.
It's an acre, it's two acres, it's probably five acres big for all these hogs to run in.
And they can go out in the woods and lay down if they want to. They can come in and get cool. They can lay in the sun.
They can make a big wallow. They can do anything they want and that's why they're the best hogs in the whole state of West
Virginia.
Two years ago, I took a couple of these hogs down there to the State Fair, and I won every medal, every ribbon, every
award there was there at the State Fair. If you see Governor Underwood, you ask him. If he says he don't remember, well,
you know there ain't nothing worse, especially in the State of West Virginia, than an honest politician.
I was going to take a couple more of them hogs down there last year, but...here comes the sad part...they all died. You don't
think that's sad, all my hogs dying? Well, you're not going to believe what happened.
There in Calhoun County where I live, I have this little farm and we have some of the strangest weather last summer you ever
seen anywhere. Well, it just wasn't in Calhoun County. It was just on our farm. Well, no, it wasn't just on our farm, either. It
was just on that hog lot. How big did I say that hog lot was? Just on that five acre hog lot.
One day, daylight to dark it would rain. Now, not one of them flooding, toad-strangling rains like you get sometimes, just a
nice gentle rain all day long. And, durned, if the next day at sun up, the sun would come out bright, not a cloud in the sky and
the sun would shine all day long. It would get 80, or 90, or it would be 100 degrees them days. One day it would rain and
the next day it would be sun. It just went on and on and on, all summer like that, rain and sun, rain. Just on that hog lot,
now.
I noticed one day them hogs was all getting just a little ball of mud on the ends of their tails. Now, in Calhoun County, we got
red clay mud. When it bakes, it bakes hard. I didn't think nothing of it because I figured them hogs would get around on
it.
Then I noticed them balls starting to get bigger. One day I went out there and there was a ball on the tail of one of them hogs
must of been as big as a softball. So, I took that hog in the barn, and I put that ball of mud up on an anvil and I hit it with a
sledgehammer. It didn't even bust it. As a matter of fact, it probably broke...yeah, it did. It broke the handle - brand new oak
handle - right out of my sledgehammer.
And I didn't know what to do. So I started calling people. I called down here at Charleston. You might as well call anyplace
else as to call down here and ask for some information, I can tell you that.
And the balls of mud on them hog's tails just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger every other day. And I was at a loss
as to what to do. When I was down at the State Fair, I met some people from all the world. Did I tell you them hogs was the
best hogs in all the world? Okay, I just wanted to make sure I got that cleared.
Now, I started calling all over the world to get information on how to save these poor hogs, and them balls of mud just kept
getting bigger and bigger and bigger. One day I went out there and they was the size of a, well, basketball. No, not a
basketball, they was as big as a bushel basket. And I didn't know what to do. The next morning when I got up, I went
outside and every one of them hogs was dead. You don't think that's sad, do you?
Well, let me tell you what happened. Them balls of mud got so big that it stretched the skin on them hog's bodies so tight that
it pulled their eyelids right open and every one of them hogs died from lack of sleep. And that's the truth!
| 
