Sometimes you just have to celebrate

Palestine, Illinois, home of the largest rodeo east of the Mississippi River, and home of the Lincoln Land AgriEnergy ethanol plant, is having its first annual Betsey Reed Festival.

Who? The only woman ever executed by hanging in Illinois (1845), who poisoned her husband with arsenic-laced sassafras tea. While at the Palestine jail Reed attempted to escape by burning down the jail. Some reports place the crowd estimate at close to 20,000 for her hanging.

From their flyer:

Like many small Midwest towns, Palestine has been trying to find something truly unique about it’s heritage that can distinguish it from the hundreds of other Midwest villages that celebrate their annual “farm harvest”. Every village has an event like the fourth of July parade. It’s not that we knock that, but we wanted to be really, truly
remembered. We noted that small towns have festivals honoring local celebrities. Abilene, KS (Pop 6543), another Midwestern small town, has Dwight D. Eisenhower who was a born and raised there. Plains, GA (Pop. 636) has Jimmy Carter. Ronald Reagan was born in Tampico, IL (pop 772). Unfortunately, Palestine has
not had any presidents born here to date. Yet we wanted a festival that would be unique; that would stand out. That’s the kind of thing that Palestine was looking for. So we put our crack tourism committee to work with the charge: “Finding us some kind of festival that makes us unique and that no other town, large or small, can claim.”

Our crack committee came back to us with the Elizabeth “Betsey” Reed Festival. Well, she’s not Eisenhower, Carter or Reagan, (although some might argue she’s only marginally below Carter just a joke, you Democrats), but she is all that Palestine has. So we have designed a twisted, dark humor, weird festival based on her life and death just for fun! We hope you can come and participate and that you are not offended.

The flyer has a photo of Jimmy Carter with the caption: "Betsey Reed is no Jimmy Carter, but she’s all we’ve got..."

Is it just me? This sounds like something Boss Hogg would come up with on Dukes of Hazzard.

See the promo at www.betseyreed.com/betsyreedflyer.pdf

Oh, and you're already to late for the diner theater:

Evening meal catered by the Palestine Preservation
Society and the Proud, Pitiful & Pathetic Palestine
Players will present their not-so-accurate show at
the Fife Opera house. It might be called; “Tea for
Two” or “All Choked Up over You”, or “Swinging in the
Breeze”. Make your reservations now to find out
the real title. Advance ticket sales are required