Tater day is held on the first
Monday after the first
Sunday in
April, In
Benton,
Kentucky(located in the
Jackson Purchase). It is the oldest festival in Ky. And started in
1843, when farmers would take advantage of the first day of
court and sell or trade their
livestock,
produce -- including
sweet potatoes in the
town square. Tater Day features just about everything else you would expect to find at an old time county fair.
In the ‘80s when the
NAACP was rumored to march in the Benton Parade, many residents of the all white southern county (Marshall) arrived bearing
arms. In the last few year the
Army has refused to march in it because of the large number of
confederate flags displayed in the town.
In
1999, When police cited Venus Starlett Dust Morgan for wearing a
Marilyn Manson T-shirt the quite little town celebration made headlines around the country.
Morgan, then a 20-year-old college student, was convicted of
harassment in a non-jury trial. She said the trial was like "a
Salem witch trial. ... It was me getting burned at the stake."
She lost her first appeal to Marshall
Circuit Court, where a judge said the shirt was not constitutionally protected
free speech. But the Court of Appeals that the wearing of a T-shirt, even with "admittedly offensive language," was not within the conduct intended to be prohibited under the harassment statute.
But the ruling was overturn by the State
Court of Appeals,
Judge Tom Emberton who wrote the option said the law prohibits a "course of conduct" or "repeated acts" intended to harass, annoy or alarm. "By wearing the T-shirt, Venus knew she would be seen, and ... it may well be inferred that she intended for viewers to be annoyed," Emberton's opinion said. But the law "clearly requires more than a simple expression of dislike by ... the public for the conduct of another person… A single act that annoys another person simply is not harassment as defined by the statute."