Tabor City Tribune

Students Make Farce Of Drawing

Many of the farmers who attended the Yam Festival free prizes drawing on Saturday afternoon must have had a sneaking suspicion that things weren't "jake."

Actually, they were rightfully perturbed. No one knows how the host of high school students came into possession of a large quantity of tickets but the fact remains that they won about 70 percent of the prizes.

We feel that the free prizes are given as a special gesture to the farmers who attend the festival and every measure possible should be taken to insure the successful outcome.

To be commended for their ingenuity are the men who helped with the drawing. They saw through the thin plot hatched in the scheming juvenile minds and ceased announcing what gift was being given away until the ticket holder presented himself. When the same youngster appeared so often as to make it monotonous, the men began to weed out the prizes and give the "scheming individuals" the less valuable.

There is no excuse for anyone having so many tickets that it becomes necessary to jot the numbers in a book rather than flip through the tickets.

Some of the festival officials will probably find this phase of the drawing a complete surprise. They are not to be condemned for what took place—all of the workers were busy at their respective jobs and it is impossible for one person to know what is going on at every station at all times.

We aren't complaining about the way it was handled—it has followed the same pattern successfully for years and no one dared dream of complications. We do suggest that the matter be thoroughly investigated and proper steps taken to prevent any such dishonest happenings next year.