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RESIDENTS HOOKED BY GRADY FISH FRY

By Erin France/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Friday, August 21, 2009 1:41 AM CDT

GRADY — Robert Scott, with a wide grin and red apron, stood next to a pot filled with hot oil, displaying his catch of freshly fried catfish.

Barbara Burnett (left), from Lebanon, MO, gets a hand eating french fries from her granddaughter Kelsey Thursday afternoon at the annual Grady Fish Fry.Pine Bluff Commercial/Ralph Fitzgerald

“I’m a chef,” he said, “I call myself a chef anyway.”

Scott is a member of the Grady Lions Club which has a long tradition — this is the 54th such event — of serving fried goodness to Arkansas residents.

“It’s always been beneficial to the community,” he said. “They do great work.”

Scott also is Grady’s fire chief and stood in a line of four other men Thursday tending 10 pots of roiling oil filled with catfish and French fries.

The scene was repeated on the other side of the open-air wooden pavilion with five more men tending several more pots.

Hungry customers lined up pulling samples from trays to plates.

“I think the first one was planned around my kitchen table,” said club member Biddley Wood of Grady. “This is our biggest fundraiser.”

Funds from the fry go towards charitable causes, she said, such as repairing the Dumas Lions Club ball fields after the 2007 tornado.

“We try to be good citizens,” Wood said.

Residents from across Southeast Arkansas attend, as do local dignitaries and out-of-town politicians.

“This is the first event where it all begins — in Grady, Arkansas,” said Kyle Hunter, the chief deputy prosecutor in the 11th Judicial District West. He’s running for the prosecuting attorney’s position in the same district. It covers Jefferson and Lincoln counties. “They talk politics and this year, I’m really into politics.”

Brandon Robinson, a Pine Bluff attorney and also a candidate for prosecuting attorney, attended as well.

“I know Lincoln County is important,” Robinson said. “My intent is to get out and work hard.”

Appeals Court Judge Waymond Brown of Pine Bluff attended with his wife and watched the campaigning politicians.

The big pull at the Grady Fish Fry?

“People,” Brown said. “My advice is to start early, campaign everywhere and shake everybody’s hand.”

And there was a whole lot of shaking going on. The Cummins Prison Band played music in the background as Lions Club members and inmates prepared food and cleared tables.

“It’s great every year,” said 2nd Ward Alderman Wayne Easterly of Pine Bluff. “Especially when you get a Chamber of Commerce day like today.”

Crittenden County Circuit Judge John Fogleman and Appeals Court Judge Courtney Henry were both pressing the flesh for a seat on the Arkansas Supreme Court.

“It’s got a lot of people and a lot of voters,” Fogleman said. “The Grady Fish Fry: You have to be here.”

Henry, dressed in seersucker pants for the occasion, agreed with the sentiment.

“I put this on my calendar a long time ago,” she said. “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

Sherwood E. Haisty said he hasn’t missed this festival since 1970.

And despite four surgeries since April, Haisty leaned on his cane in the shade, watching folks file past mountains of golden battered fish.

“It’s unique,” he said. “There’s nothing in the world like this.”

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