Eldoradoans endure doomsday week with double dose of humor
 Series of comic spoofs serve to calm jittery nerves
 
The Eldorado Success
Brandon Key planted this kiss on the nose of a kid goat Saturday during the 3rd annual Elgoatarod Festival.

Pucker up — Brandon Key planted this kiss on the nose of a kid goat Saturday during the 3rd annual Elgoatarod Festival. The smooch was a impressive one, but fell short of winning the goat kissing contest.
 
Eldorado’s Jim Runge near the entrance to the YFZ Ranch where he posed as the Grim Reaper.

Eldorado’s Jim Runge looks for humor everywhere. He found it Tuesday evening near the entrance to the YFZ Ranch where he posed as the Grim Reaper. FLDS Prophet Warren Jeffs, whose followers built the temple pictured in the background, reportedly predicted the end of the world for April 6, 2005, on the 175th anniversary of the founding of the LDS Church by Joseph Smith, Jr. The FLDS is a sect that broke away from the LDS Church over the practice of polygamy, a practice still prevalent among FLDS members.

Despite dire predictions of impending doom made by some followers of Prophet Warren Jeffs and his Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, many Eldoradoans chose this week to look for the black cloud’s more humorous silver lining.

The third annual Elgoatarod festival got under way over the weekend on the Schleicher County Courthouse square, a mere four miles from the FLDS enclave on the YFZ Ranch. With the national news media gathering in town to await the “worldwide destructions” Jeffs was said to have predicted for April 6, Eldoradoans met on the square to watch goat races and hear their own Jon Cartwright sing “Plural Girl Blues” (see lyrics on Page 6). Cartwright said the song was inspired by the plural, or polygamous marriages, practiced by FLDS members.

Reporters from the Salt Lake Tribune and the Canadian Broadcasting Company, worked the Elgoatarod crowd Saturday, looking for local reaction to the YFZ Ranch story, but they soon found themselves sampling the many food and vendor booths arrayed on the courthouse lawn.

“Eldorado, Polygamy Capital of Texas” souvenir baseball caps quickly sold out, leaving many who wanted an Eldorado keepsake to settle for a “Polygamy Marriage License” or a “V.I.P. Parking Permit” for the “Texas Polygamy Games.”

Jim Runge, who organized the event, said he thought the tongue-in-cheek answer to the Iditirod Dog Sled race had come at a good time for Eldorado. “After a year of reading about and hearing about Warren Jeffs, most people here are ready for a good laugh,” Runge said. “They want to be entertained and that’s what the Elgoatarod is all about.”

Runge’s Elgoatarod stage played host to goat kissing contests, a goatee contest, a best dressed goat contest and a number of other goat-related events. There were also songs by Wendy Dunagan and Jon Cartwright plus the Lone Star Cloggers and West Texas Cloggers.

Then, of course, there were the goat races, with goats of all types and sizes pulling a strange assortment of carts with the winner claiming a custom-made trophy. One of the carts even resembled flying saucer .

Runge said the two-day event was bigger and better than the two previous Elgoatarod festivals. “It started out a little slow on Saturday, but the crowd was steady all day long.” Runge said. “Sunday’s crowd was much bigger than last year’s. All in all I would say it went well.”

Runge’s antics didn’t end Sunday with the closing of Elgoatarod, not by a long-shot.

On Monday, he hosted dozens of reporters at his EOBOC (Eldorado Olympic Bid Organizing Committee) World Headquarters, actually just an old gas station located at the town’s only stoplight. There he regaled them with stories, and directed them to his “Hysterical District” at the south end of town.

Eldoradoans awoke early Tuesday morning to see the sign “Tomorrow is Cancelled” on the marquee in front of the Courthouse. Again, it was Runge’s handiwork, and again he was trying to lighten things up as yet another barrage of reporters streamed into town.

Some people were put off by the sign, however, still others had questions and by midday calls to the Sheriff’s office became such a nuisance that Sheriff Doran asked Runge to change it, which he did. The sign then said, “Just kidding, tomorrow has not been cancelled after all.”

“Some people just didn’t get it,” Runge said of the marquee.

Still, he had a message to get out, so he quickly painted to new signs and placed them hear the road at this EOBOC Headquarters.

One of the signs said, “Repent and Sin No More -or- Repaint and Thin No More,” mimicking one of the signs in the Hysterical District.

The second sign said, “The Last Issue of The Success will be out LATE Tomorrow - Collector’s Copy for Martians.”

Runge said he knew the Success was going to delay its press time as much as possible because of Jeffs’ April 6 prediction. “Warren said we’re all going to get wiped out,” Runge told the Success Tuesday night, “But his followers, well they’re gonna be lifted up. That leaves only space aliens to read the paper.”

The comedian’s final stunt surprised even the most seasoned Runge-watcher, and had the out-of-town reporters rolling on the ground laughing when he donned a black cape, put on a set of stilts, picked up a scythe and appeared as the Grim Reaper.

For several minutes, Runge stood between his freshly painted signs and waived at passing motorists. Many stared, others laughed, still others honked and waived back.

Then, as one last defiant gesture to the seriousness Warren Jeffs had brought to Runge’s once carefree hometown, he carried his Grim Reaper act to County Road 300 near the entrance to the YFZ Ranch. There, he posed for photos with the FLDS Temple in the background.

“Nothing’s going to happen here tomorrow. Warren will tell his people they haven’t been faithful enough and he will send them back to work,” Runge stated. “But...not before he passes the collection plate.”
 
MyEldorado.net
Originally published April 7, 2005
 
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