Story by Anne Butler Hamilton, illustration by Ronnie Morgan
1988 Cover and Bopotamus Festival article
A preview of the long-gone Star Hill Bopotamus Festival—playfully named for the creature alleged to be "the missing evolutionary link between the pig and the hippopotamus".
This story was selected by the Country Roads magazine editorial team as the representative piece for 1988 in the archival project "40 Stories From 40 Years"—celebrating the magazine's 40th anniversary on stands. Click here to read more stories from the project.
In the rural reaches of the Feliciana Parishes, it’s sometimes necessary to make one’s own entertainment, and the Bopotamus Festival August 27 and 28 is a prime example of just how much fun that can be.
Held in the center of the Star Hill business district (don’t blink, or you’ll miss it), the festival celebrates the willy bopotamus, elusive cousin of the nauga of naugahyde fame and said to be the missing evolutionary link between the pig and the hippopotamus. There are enormous cash prizes offered for the first sighting of this little critter whose habitat encompasses the wild and rugged Tunica Hills region all the way from South of the Border to the Audubon Lounge.
Story by Anne Butler; illustration by Ronnie Morgan
"Bopotamus Festival," published in the July-August 1988 issue of Country Roads.
A museum set up just for the festival displays such significant relics as a bopotamus tusk and nest. Highlight of the Star Hill social calendar, the festival also features live bands and entertainment, competitions between teams of volunteer firemen, plenty of children’s activities, watermelon-eating contests, refreshments catered by local restaurants offering such past favorite delicacies as “Nauga Legs,” arts and crafts, and a dunking booth (Ronnie Mordan says everyone’s favorite target, the sheriff, will of necessity be fitted with waterwings this year so he can survive to be a good sport again next year).
There is also that epitomy of good taste and culture, the Miss Bopotamus contest, attracting lovelies of such dazzling beauty as to assure that the bopotamus never will come out of the woods, but Playboy is said to be negotiating rights for a centerfold spread (or is it Penthouse?)
An auction benefits the area fire department substation as well as an annual scholarship given to a needy college-bound student in memory of Star Hill’s self-proclaimed mayor and greatest prankster, the late Murphy Dreher, whose long-suffering friends were known to periodically open the newspaper and read with horror the announcements of their own weddings the attractive Miss Bertha Butts, Murphy’s pet pig, and who faithfully donned pith helmet and bermudas to reign over the yearly Bopotamus Balls which he instigated.
Held around Star Hill Antiques and Gifts on US 61 south of St. Francisville, the Bopotamus Festival is a fun fling to end the summer.
