NARRATOR: Coming up on Keystone Stories-- quirky festivals.

[music playing] Support for Keystone Stories comes from Tom and Sara Songer of the Torron Group in State College, a proud supporter of programming on WPSU.

More information at torrongroup.com.

The Rockwell Foundation, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, supporting the arts, science, technology, and education, a proud supporter of local programs on WPSU.

Centre County Historical Society, with support from Happy Valley Adventure Bureau.

Andy and Chris Bater.

The following endowments, and viewers like you-- thank you.

Welcome to Keystone Stories.

Pennsylvania is home to hundreds of towns and communities.

Many of these areas host their own carnivals, fairs, or festivals.

Some of these are known for their rich history and tradition, like here at the Centre County Grange Fair, which has been active for over 150 years.

But the Commonwealth is also known for some more unique or even quirky community celebrations.

[music playing] NARRATOR: Pennsylvania's festivals and fairs offer a wide variety of themes.

There's the Mummers Parade in Philadelphia and the Mac and Cheese Festival in State College.

How about the Whoopie Pie Festival in Lancaster, or Pierogi Festivals in Pittsburgh?

And no list of Pennsylvania celebrations would be complete without Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney.

Local fairs offer handmade crafts, livestock shows, and deep-fried delights.

Autumn brings vibrant harvest festivals and haunted hay rides.

In the winter, twinkling lights and Christmas markets dazzle.

Music, food, culture, and community come alive in every corner of the state.

But there are some corners of the state that provide themes and activities that are a little outside of the box.

[buzzing] You are here at the Chainsaw Carvers Rendezvous, year number 24.

And we have probably about 110 carvers here.

And it's really something incredible to see.

If you've never seen it, it's a magical moment.

And if you have, you will be back.

Absolutely awesome.

It's so great.

I came here from Germany, and this year I'm the only German guy.

It's cool.

It's really cool to be here.

It's a fun event.

It's not a competition.

And usually everybody-- everybody comes to see old friends or to learn new stuff.

It's like the big draw.

It's the big social event of woodcarvers for the year.

[upbeat music] NARRATOR: The festival happens every April in Ridgeway.

It began in the late '90s, when brothers Rick and Randy Boni had the idea to invite fellow woodcarvers to get together and show off their work.

Soon after that, they launched the first Chainsaw Carvers Rendezvous.

First year we had 33 carvers.

We thought that was a lot because it was brand-new.

And we've gone from 33 carvers.

At one point, we had 230 carvers, which we live in a small town, and logistically, that was pretty much of a nightmare.

So we've backed it back down to about 100, 110 carvers.

This is probably one of the biggest gatherings of chainsaw carvers, definitely in the area, probably in the United States.

I'm lucky enough to be one of them.

And one of the few female carvers here.

Maybe there's seven or eight or so of us.

This is something that I use as a financial means to live the lifestyle that I want to live.

And this Chainsaw Carvers Rendezvous is more of a way for us carvers to come together and be part of this community, to interact, to learn, to be creative, to see what everybody else is up to.

It's the community.

It's the carvers all together.

I came here-- I knew no one.

I'm here, and I have a new family.

It's like a big family.

You get some that step out of the art world, some step out of the lumberjack world, and some that had no training at all in anything.

And then they pick up a chainsaw and start into it.

I like to describe the chainsaw carving community as the family that I never had.

Now I found my people.

We're all different from the rest of society.

We all fit in together in that way.

When we started this, there were no chainsaw carving events.

Maybe two or three on the West Coast.

Now there's probably a chainsaw carving event every weekend somewhere in the world, and they travel, and it's like an art movement.

And that's how we marketed it as an art movement as opposed to an art form.

I ride around here, and I'll tell you what?

It's magic in the air.

No matter where you're at or what you're doing, whether it's food, crafts, music, or the chainsaw art, it is just creative energy that flows and flows and flows.

NARRATOR: If the legend of Sasquatch is more your speed, then you should take a trip to Forest County in early June.

[music playing] Well, today, what you're seeing is one of the largest Bigfoot festivals in the world.

It's really great to see the entire community come together and help make this happen.

Thank you so much.

We have 160 vendors here.

And last year, we had about 20,000 people.

We expect the same or more this year.

We have a free-to-come-to festival.

You can have an experience like you've never had in your life for no cost, except for the cost of your gas.

It's a free experience, and I think that's one of the things that helps make this festival as large as it is.

JO SHAFFER: I love seeing these kids walking around and looking and doing things, getting their picture with Bigfoots.

And the speakers are really what attract a lot of people here.

I'm a reluctant Bigfoot.

JO SHAFFER: That's why people come here, is to hear the discussions and hear what these speakers have to say about their experiences in hunting Bigfoot and seeing Bigfoot.

We have all kinds of people here.

When you have that kind of experience, it changes your life.

We come to the event for all of our fans.

We like to come out and bring joy, share happiness, just share ourselves, and just enjoy people-- just to give them-- make them have fun.

Just show them what it's all about, you know.

Well, Bigfoot is always wanting to be seen.

And people love to see Bigfoot.

And I guess people want to see a Bigfoot, so I guess-- They can go see him.

Just to go up in the mountains and look.

Yeah.

They're not going to come down to see you.

You got to go see them.

That's right.

[bigfoot vocalizing] I believe Bigfoot brings people together.

People want to come together and share that and just have fun.

I've had vendors here tell me that this is the happiest crowd that they've ever seen because everybody has a smile on their face.

My favorite part is seeing our community of Marionville really come alive.

I mean, most of the time here in Marionville, it's pretty quiet.

So it's fun, and it's only for three days, and then it's back to our little community again.

NARRATOR: There's another little community that holds a big festival in July, but this Kecksburg Festival is out of this world.

It's the kind of special weekend for us.

This is the 20th anniversary of our UFO festival and 60 years for the UFO incident here in Kecksburg.

NARRATOR: The incident occurred in December 1965, when witnesses reported seeing a fiery object streak across the sky before crashing in Kecksburg.

Questions still remain about the true origin of the object.

We heard it and seen it.

I seen the streak in the sky from Greensburg.

Some kind of a craft came down, and it was explained as well.

Was it a craft?

Was it a weather balloon?

Was it this?

Was it that?

And we come out, which is now Meteor Road, and I seen the military.

We seen the military down in the hall.

People that actually saw it, some people said it came in and actually made some kind of a maneuver before it sat down.

So then people believed, well, it was some kind of a craft that was, you know, could maneuver.

Do I have a theory?

Yeah.

It was something come out of the sky and fell in Kecksburg.

I love this event because it's so different than other paranormal-type themed things because this is their home days.

This is something that a lot of the people in the area look forward to all year round, not just because it's a paranormal thing.

It's unique because it's not just about the UFO.

It's also about ghosts and cryptozoology, which is something that I enjoy doing as well.

It's the whole paranormal bouquet.

Ready?

Get set.

Go.

NARRATOR: It's not just a celebration of the paranormal.

The highlight of the UFO festival features a slightly different mode of transportation.

The red race.

You take a single hospital bed, put a mattress on it.

And if you win, we give you a trophy and a T-shirt.

This is more of a family community festival than anything.

If it wasn't for the volunteers that come help us, we wouldn't have the festival.

Kecksburg is known as the Roswell of the east.

So Roswell, as we all know, is probably the most prominent UFO crash in history.

I think this is way better than Roswell because it's not about, well, the government is hiding information, which they could be, even about this.

But this is more about, gosh, what happened?

Because we know definitely something happened here.

Something crashed in the Chestnut Mountains.

We know it happened, but what was it?

So I think that's what brings people to this mystery and brings them out to this event as well.

NARRATOR: Our final stop in the quest for quirky festivals is Sullivan County, home of Dushore.

[music playing] Well, first of all, I want to welcome you to Dushore.

Today is one of our biggest days.

It's Founder's Day.

It starts at 8 o'clock in the morning with a basketball tournament.

NARRATOR: Basketball isn't the only competitive activity at Founder's Day.

The real action is Dushore's legendary outhouse race.

Yes, you heard that right.

Back in the early '90s, the local business people wanted to have a day where they could display their goods.

It did start like as sidewalk sales out along the businesses.

Dushore is located between two state parks, Ricketts Glen State Park and World's End State Park.

So our idea was to draw the people from these different areas into our downtown.

The Dushore Lions Club stepped in when we brought in the outhouse races, and then it has grown into a full-day event.

We started like 25 years ago.

A couple of the older members started it.

We felt that we needed something to do else for the Founder's Day event.

Awesome.

In the beginning, we only had maybe two outhouses, three or four outhouses like that.

And it was a big hit.

And you'll see thousands of people along these streets.

Since we race outhouses, why not paint a toilet seat?

We had a local artist who started this, and we've been doing it probably for 10 to 12 years now.

When we do auction off the toilet seats, the money goes to a local charity, like the library, the food pantry, different local charities we donate the money to.

Going once, going twice.

So, there you are.

[music playing] We just do it to make people a community.

I think just to get people from the cities and from other areas to see that the small counties can have a good turnout, have good ideas, good things to see come see our beauty.

Sullivan County is a beautiful county.

We're one of the smallest counties in Pennsylvania.

But I think we have one of the biggest hearts here.

NARRATOR: Whether it's wooden fish, mythical beings, or bathrooms on wheels, Pennsylvania's festivals celebrate the wonderfully weird.

These events aren't just traditions.

They're vibrant expressions of community, charm, and creativity that make the Keystone State truly unique year after year.

Now we'll travel to Jefferson County, where every February 2, thousands of people gather to celebrate the seer of seer, the prognosticator of all prognosticators, the only true weather-predicting groundhog-- Punxsutawney Phil.

My name is Mike Johnston.

I'm the vice president of the inner circle of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club.

And I'm here to tell you about the history of Groundhog Day.

The legend really comes from German settlers who settled this part of Pennsylvania in the mid-1800s.

And the legend states that if the sun shines on Candlemas Day, there will be two winters in the year.

And the legend is, of course, that if Phil comes out of his burrow and sees his shadow, he's frightened by it, and he's driven back into his burrow for six more weeks.

If he comes out, and there is no shadow, then he's prepared to come out at any time to enjoy the early spring.

The easiest way to describe the inner circle, we are the board of directors of the Groundhog Club.

All right.

We have one job, and that is to protect and perpetuate the legend of Punxsutawney Phil.

We're responsible for Phil, and we are responsible for Groundhog Day.

My name is Dana Emmel, and I'm going to talk about our local school bus company, which is operated by Student Transportation of America, but is locally known as Christ's Bus Service.

[music playing] On Groundhog Day, school in Punxsutawney is closed for the day so the buses can be used to transport fans to the knob.

It's a very long day.

I don't even know if some of the drivers even go to sleep.

You'd be up at midnight.

You go up to the garage, prepare your bus, get that bus nice and warm.

Starting at 3:00 AM, they start transporting people to the knob from downtown at various locations.

And they'll continue-- as the morning goes on, they'll add more drivers in as the crowds grow.

So I would like maybe sign up for 5 o'clock.

Sometimes people were cold up there, and they want to go down off the knob already.

So you take them down.

You keep doing this loop until, finally, they call you to stop transporting because it's time for the prognostication.

So then it's time to line up, and the buses all line up.

It's very long.

The first year I drove, we were lined up all the way up past Walmart.

I think it was-- it was very long.

MIKE JOHNSTON: Groundhog Day, obviously, is a very unique holiday.

Not too many people have fun at 3 o'clock in the morning, standing on frozen ground, listening to music, and a bunch of guys dancing around on top of a stump.

It's a little bizarre, but we think it's a lot of fun.

Anybody that lives in a small town will tell you that the best part of living in a small town is the people.

Punxsutawney is no different.

But I think the best thing about living here without question is the people.

I'm proud of our town because it's kind of picturesque to me.

It has a nice park, and they're really working hard to make the downtown area, the storefronts, look really nice.

Among small towns, I think it's pretty nice.

The next few stories are from the Our Town series.

And while not every festival celebrates UFOs or Sasquatches, these more traditional celebrations each have their own unique charm, and they all feature a strong sense of community engagement.

My name is Pat Kenfer, and I'm actually here to talk about the Cameron County Fair, of which I am the president of the board of directors, and also a little bit about the Big Flag Memorial Park that we have on the west end of town.

And we're the smallest county fair in the State of Pennsylvania.

We are like the biggest family reunion you have ever seen.

And we do a lot of fun games.

We do balloon shaving with the kids and the adults.

We have nail driving.

We just have a lot of fun.

The fair itself offers funnel cakes.

We probably make the best funnel cakes in the county.

That's because we make the only funnel cakes in the county, so that's OK.

The local pizza-- Pizza Palace, who has some world-famous pizza.

He comes in every night and makes pizzas.

We do an annual queen contest.

And on the night that we crown our fair queen and junior queen and prince and princess, we have karaoke with the queen.

And our kids spend till they would stay all night if we'd let them.

But we can't pay the karaoke guy that long.

My daughter actually was the fair queen three years ago, so we were able to do that experience too.

And our biggie that everybody thinks is so much fun is our Cow Patty Bingo.

We have a little part of our corral sectioned off.

It's 10 by 10, and you buy a 1-foot square piece of land basically for $1.

And after we've sold 100 squares, we grab our cow out of the petting zoo, and we take him over to the corral, and we wait for him to do his business.

And if you're the lucky person that the cow plops on your square, you win $50.

It's a lot of fun.

It's fun.

That's what the whole thing is all about-- is just having a lot of fun with the local people.

I'm Phylis Wright, a volunteer for the Warren County Fair.

And Todd [inaudible] and myself went to the fair.

And we want to share what the fair is all about.

The fair is always the first full week of August.

And believe it or not, there's over 850 exhibitors there, plus over 7,500 different kinds of exhibits.

Everybody thinks the farm animals are the biggest part of the fair, and of course, they're one big part.

But you have the dairy and the dairy shows.

You have the swine and pleasure horses and draft horses, and they're always showing their best throughout the whole week.

The services our organizations provide are unbelievable.

For instance, the mothers come up to me and say, thank you for the Warren General Hospital's baby diaper changing place.

It's private.

It's clean.

There's also many services that we provide for other activities, too.

One of the favorite things is our own WLEM Radio Station.

Kip Co.

is there, and they just make a delight because they interview the persons that are just passing by.

They interview the exhibitors, the contest people.

So they're a major part of the promotion and telling people about the great things that happened at the fair.

One reason why people come to the fair is to eat.

You can't pass by the Zam Zam without smelling the sausages and the peppers.

The 4-H Center-- they have the chicken barbecues, the grains, great beef dinners, and all homemade pies.

And of course, this is one time when these different organizations can make money to be able to support what they do throughout the whole year.

And the economic development of this fair has been a great asset for the whole community, even the whole county.

And of course, the support of the hundreds and hundreds of volunteers, as well as all the things that happen throughout the year that really make a difference.

Along with that, we have fun.

And that's a great part of the fair, and we show the best of all of Warren County.

For our final segment, we'll take you back to Ridgway and Dushore to celebrate the artistry and competition of these great communities.

[music playing] WOMAN: When we started this, I would say chainsaw art was probably primitive art.

And from there, it's really expanded and has grown into a contemporary art form.

It's visual art.

It's performing art.

It's everything all at once.

It's just incredible.

[music playing] They're not conventional artists.

They don't want to play by artists rules.

[chainsaw revving] I interviewed at the Folk Art Museum in New York City, trying to get a show of chainsaw art.

The curator of the museum basically sat with me for over an hour, looked at pictures and said, you don't need us.

You are an outdoor museum that does this, and she's the one that told me, you're no longer a folk art.

You're a contemporary art form now.

[music playing] We had a fellow Lion, Spencer Davis.

He passed away this spring.

He brought the idea to us.

He saw, in Minnesota, they were raising outhouses across the ice with skis on it.

So he thought it would be a good idea to bring it to our area.

And we did it with wheels-- our houses with wheels.

And it's caught on.

I don't know of any other town or city or place that does an outhouse race.

[music playing] So they take one of these outhouses, and they start right down here by the end of this-- at the end of our store here.

And then they go up around the monument and come back down.

And that's one lap.

Once that lap is done, then that was a time trial.

And then two other teams go, and they just keep doing it until the end, until someone eventually wins.

And usually, the winning team will probably take five to six runs up and down the street, depending on how many teams there are.

And there's five people to a team.

OK, one person is driving.

Four people are pushing.

Come on, man, go, go.

We don't care if you have three people or two people.

You can't have any more than four people pushing.

They have to be at least 6 foot high at the highest point.

Believe me, it gets technical.

I have a three-page thing of rules that we have to deal with.

And over the years, we've had to fine-tune the rules because everybody was trying to-- it's like NASCAR.

It was ridiculous what you had to do.

There's a seat.

They've got to have a hole in it.

You got to have a seat belt on.

Got to have a helmet on.

They got to have a hole in the back of it so the guys pushing can see if there's anybody in front of them.

Maybe another team member fell or something like that because the guys who are pushing really have no control.

It's the person driving.

And if it gets out of hand or something, the guys in the back need to be able to see if they're going into the crowd.

They got to be able to stop it-- things like that.

Absolutely no brakes.

No.

People, when you'll see at the end, when they're coming down this hill, they're going to be moving pretty quick.

And there's a bunch of guys there helping stop the outhouses.

That's first place.

Yeah.

Everybody wants that trophy.

OK, so, guy in the toilet.

Looks pretty cool.

[laughs] Thanks for watching.

See you next time on Keystone Stories.

[music playing]