Napoleon Dynamite Festival in Preston, Idaho 2005, Sarah Judith Langston

From MemoryArchive

Who: Sarah Judith Langston
What: Napolean Dynamite Festival 
Where: Preston, Idaho, USA

A sigh emits from any Boisean when they tell people they are from Idaho and that person immediately quotes the movie "Napoleon Dynamite" to them. Yes, the movie was funny. No, I do not have a pet llama. No matter what, breakdancing is fun, always. The part of the movie that most of America missed was how stunningly accurate the movie was in depicting a rural Idahoans (or Idahomie if you prefers) life.

My friend's disbelief that that couldn't possibly be true is what led my friends from Yale College to Preston, Idaho for the first annual Napolean Dyanamite Festival.

The people in Preston were a fantastic and interesting bunch. There were many there who, like myself, just wanted to find out what was going on and if the townies were embarassed by the movie. There were those that shared a genuine and often extreme interest in the movie and those that just couldn't resit a party. People dressed in costumes, wore "Vote for Pedro" t-shirts and some of the more daring ones even had their hair permed for the festival. At least I hope it was for the festival.

The day was a wholesome blur. A very nice lady insisted that, despite the fact that I was 20 years old, I was only 4'10" and should be in the smaller kids potato sack race. I won. I was proud. They played the B52's song "My Own Private Idaho" far too many times to count which kept the feeling up that I had indeed time traveled into the 1980s. The major portion of the event seemed to revolve around eating. There were tater-tot eating contests. I also had my first ever Idaho Potato that was larger than the size of my first (in Idaho, they export all their potatos and receive itty-bitty ones from Oregon or Washington).

Glamour Shots were awesome, and despite a little bit of lipstick on my teeth, I believe the shots turned out "totally sweet." I was there with a person from Bejing, China, a guy from New York City, and another girl from Seattle, Washington. Because we were all "city folk," one of the local townspeople offered to take us back to his farm where we milked cows and ate corn fresh from the field. It was quite the day.