By RICHARD SITLER
Indiana Correspondent

FANCY FARM, Ky. — St. Jerome’s Church dominates a bend of the road that is Kentucky State Road 8, which is the main road of a Kentucky town with a whimsical name - Fancy Farm. According to the Kentucky Atlas & Gazetteer, Fancy Farm is in Graves County, about 11 miles northwest of Mayfield, the county seat.

The town grew up around St. Jerome Church, built in 1836. Since 1880 Fancy Farm has been the home of the annual Fancy Farm picnic. It is on the grounds of Fancy Farm Elementary School, formerly the St. Jerome Parish School, on the first Saturday in August.

Across from St. Jerome’s is Droopy’s Restaurant, a one-level, brick building. The establishment offered standard menu items that were posted on a wall that also featured Royal Crown Soda signs above wooden booths. There were also sets of long tables with four chairs in the center of the room. The restaurant prepares breakfast, lunch and dinner plates, and it is obviously the local gathering place.

Debbie Papoi, a waitress, said the diner dates back to at least the 1950s.
Debbie, herself, is much newer to Fancy Farm - having moved here about six years ago from Rockfield, Ill. She likes her new hometown.

“I love it here,” Papoi reported. “People are good. If you broke down here, there would always be someone to stop and help.”

She explained that the restaurant’s name comes from a tall-tale-telling table at the front of the diner where many farmers congregate between 6-7 a.m.
Fancy Farm native Penny Lamb, sister of Droopy’s owner Debbie Wilson, said the town’s popular picnic is the first Saturday in August each year. Lamb explained that 40,000-50,000 people attend the annual picnic, and it is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest picnic in the world.

Lamb is the owner of Brown Thompson Meats, located up the road at 119 State Route 339. She originally owned a business at another location under a different name, but bought Brown Thompson and relocated her operation to that location. Lamb kept the name because it was more established. Her business is meat processing only, it is not a slaughterhouse.

One of her employees, Jerry Skinner, is knowledgeable about the picnic’s past and Fancy Farm’s history. Skinner said he has attended every picnic since he has been old enough to go. “Don’t think I’ve missed one,” he added.

Skinner grew up in Fancy Farm, and has been cutting and processing meat at Brown Thompson for more than 40 years.

He said the business was started by Ken Lake and Paul Birch, and they had three employees and two trucks. Lamb took over seven years ago, and maintains the same number of employees. They do both wholesale and retail business, and provide meat to little stores for about a 50-mile radius from Fancy Farm.

“Fifty miles as the crow flies,” Skinner said.

Brown Thompson made its name processing country hams, hog jaw and bacon.
Skinner, 68, retired in 2000, but he said he couldn’t handle retirement – “couldn’t get no peace and quiet, so I went back to work.”

The origin of the town’s name, Skinner said, is simple.

“I learned that - how did it go?” he began. “The town wanted to name it. The post delivery came down, and there was a couple of nice farms. That was back in the 1800s. The Postmaster said, ‘You all sure got some fancy farms around here,’ and it stuck.”