Call him Mr. Chicken, although after 25 years of organizing the Guffey Chicken Fly, this might be the last year that founder Bill Soux is willing to organize one of Colorado’s most eccentric Fourth of July festivities. But who knows? This isn’t the first time he’s threatened to close down the event celebrated in “Roadside America,” an offbeat guide to the country’s oddest tourist attractions. — Claire Martin, The Denver Post
Q: What do you serve for refreshments at an event like this?
A: The first year, in 1986, we had deep-fried chicken, but I got so sick of hearing “Are those the losers?” that for the next 24 years, we switched to burgers.
Q: How do you get a chicken to fly?
A: We have this 12-foot tower I built, and a chicken chute, which is an old mailbox that I lined with red velvet and a sandpaper-covered front door, and nothing in back. The kids put the chickens inside the mailbox, and then I hand them a toilet plunger to encourage it to fly.
Q: And does that work pretty well?
A: The standing record is 180 feet. But one year, someone brought in a dozen meat birds for the fly. When you put one of those in the chute — and you could hardly fit it in the chute — it just goes plop when it goes out. So we don’t use meat birds.
Q: Have you ever had a fatality?
A: In 25 years, we’ve had chickens fly 35,000 times from that chute, and not one was hurt.
Q: Do you get some grief from animal rights activists?
A: Some group in Maryland wants to sue me for animal cruelty. I can’t believe those people. They tell me that chickens can’t fly and that making them fly is terrible. Well, I wrote them a letter as if I was a chicken, and I said that once a year, I got to go in the Guffey Chicken Fly, but that my poor brothers and sisters are all Kentucky Fried now. But those people didn’t like that, either, for some reason.
Q: What kind of birds are you using this year?
A: We’ve got English game bantams. They’re small and light. I think this year we’ll get some good distances.
Q: Is it true that this is the last Guffey Chicken Fly?
A: Maybe. I don’t know. Last year, we lost money because a weasel got into the chicken coop about three weeks before the Fly, and it killed 135 Leghorns and I can’t remember what other breeds. Cut their throats and left them there. Didn’t even eat them. And you try finding 130 chickens at the last minute. You can’t get ’em cheap.
Q: Was that the most historically disastrous Chicken Fly?
A: Well, the year of the Hayman Fire, our Fourth of July was canceled. We moved the Fly to October, and then it got snowed out.
Q: But you still had the chickens?
A: Weasel didn’t get ’em that year.
