Springfield, SC (WLTX) - Springfield residents had a hoppin' good time at the annual Governor's Frog Jump Festival on Saturday.
The event has been going strong in the small town for about 50 years now. People from all over show up to participate in their egg strike contest, and of course, the frog jump competition.
Bob Bonnett, an Aiken resident from Springfield and the announcer of the festivities, says the event was rooted in hometown pride.
"It originated on the Statehouse grounds in South Carolina approximately 50 years ago," Bonnett said. "The governor from California challenged the then governor of South Carolina to a frog jumping contest. They have the Calaveras County frog jumping contest in California and he wanted to have something similar versus a governor on the East Coast. So he contacted the governor in South Carolina and they held a contest on the state house grounds and three guys from here in Springfield won that contest. We then asked the governor if we could have that little festival and contest here in Springfield and that's kind of our history a frog jump in here in town."
Bonnett says, even though the contest is fun, it's more than that.
"We are a very small town of about 500 people," Bonnett said. "There's really not much industry around so when you grow up here, you have to move off and go somewhere else to work. So it's like a big homecoming for us, this is a big Easter weekend. We come back and see our relatives that are still here, we enjoy our families and friends that we grew up with that we don't have maybe as much contact with anymore, so it's just a great gathering of all the people from around town and the different towns, we have a great time."