Phillips Old Home Days contest tests mettle of participants.
PHILLIPS – Stella is quite a woman.
Perhaps it’s her crazy rust-colored hair or her generous curves. It could be her long, slender legs or maybe it’s her deep, dark eyes that are open windows to her soul.
Stella is a great catch say those in Phillips who know her. She likes to fish. Enjoys riding in cars and is as low-maintenance as they come.
It’s all those reasons and more that nine residents from Phillips, Avon and Madrid have spent the last two weeks chasing after Stella with hopes of being the last one to end up with her in the Phillips Old Home Days Stella Contest, sponsored by Stella’s creator, Dana Dudley, and his wife, Sharon.
In reality, Stella is not a woman. She is more of a thing. Her head is a discarded Bundt pan. Her face an antique sprocket from a bicycle. Her body an old fertilizer spreader. Her legs are spare parts from a tossed out stair stepper exercise machine. And in true Madonna fashion, circa 1980s, her chest is made up of two metal funnels. Stella is silly, but she is also art.
Creativity
The contest is just one of the many creative, albeit slightly bizarre, events that have captivated the people of Phillips during the 45th annual Old Home Days, which started Aug. 1 and run through Sunday.
The Stella contest, an old event started by resident Winona Davenport, and brought back this year by the Dudley family, pitted two teams against one another in a race to find Stella.
The rules are simple. Stella must be placed within seeing distance of any road that has mailboxes on it in the towns of Phillips, Avon or Madrid. Once a team finds Stella, they have 45 minutes to hide her again.
In the end, the Avon Valley Rats, comprised of five members of the Bachelder family, won Stella’s hand and the trophy when their opponents, the Deli Dogs didn’t have any luck finding her. Sharon says in all, Stella changed hands five or six times and could be seen everywhere in the area from fishing in Toothaker Pond to relaxing in a canvas chair beside a culvert.
In total, the team guesses they put hundreds of miles on their vehicles and spent around 30 hours apiece looking for the lovely metal lady.
The prize was 75 percent of the registration fees, or $35. Not enough to pay for the gas they used, joked Sharon.
“It breaks the boredom,” says Victor Bachelder.
Dana, who enjoys making yard sculptures out of junk from the dump, spent an entire day making Stella. “It’s cheap entertainment,” he said of the Stella contest. “I go to the dump for enlightenment.”
Dana said of making Stella, “I wanted her to have a womanly figure, lightweight so she could be thrown in the back of a truck and petite. I love it. She’s got a great big grin.”
Stella will appear with the Avon Valley Rats in the Old Home Days parade Friday at 5 p.m. Then, Dana is trading her to someone in Strong for a skidder rim, which he will use as a workbench for creating a new Stella for next year. She will become a lawn ornament.
The Dudleys hope more people will participate in the contest, so the competition will be more heated. Dana doesn’t have a design yet, saying he works best under pressure. But he does have some ideas. “A little slimmer,” he says with a chuckle. “And more curves.”
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