Delaware

This Delaware event made a list of the wackiest US festivals. Have you ever been?

Published

1 year ago

September 21, 2024

This Delaware event made a list of the wackiest US festivals. Have you ever been?

Delaware is known to have some unique happenings, but the one that just got a shoutout on this list of the wackiest fall festivals in the United States might surprise you.

Wacky fall festival in Delaware

There are plenty of odd and whimsical Delaware traditions that out-of-towners, and even some Delawareans, might see as a bit weird. The one that Thrillist, a media company, chose to highlight for its list of the weirdest and wackiest fall festivals in the country is the Sea Witch Festival in Rehoboth Beach.

If you don’t know what a Sea Witch Festival is, Rehoboth Beach prefaces the event with the following eerie blurb:

“Not all witches hang out in caves with their cauldrons; sometimes they have a strong affinity for the wide-open sea.”

In short, it’s to celebrate the lore of the alternative mermaid mentioned above.

This year’s festival runs from 8 a.m. on Oct. 25 to 8 p.m. on Oct. 27. It includes a haunted bonfire, hayrides, a pet-friendly costume parade with nautical floats, a broom-tossing competition and a lantern-lit story time that tells the “true tale” of a ship that sank off the coast of Delaware in 1785.

Oh, and apparently, ghosts will be in attendance …

Weirdest, wackiest fall festivals in the US

Whether you’re a Sea Witch Festival regular or you’ve never attended the event, some of the other festivals on Thrillist’s list make Rehoboth’s celebration look completely ordinary.

Wisconsin State Cow Chip Throw & Festival

Although this takes place on Aug. 30 and Aug. 31, Thrillist added it to the list because it’s “too absurd to skip.” This festival in Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin, stems from the old practice of using dried buffalo chips – poop – as fuel to warm the houses of pioneers.

Now, Wisconsin keeps the spirit alive with its festival that includes music, arts and crafts, magicians, a “cow chip breakfast” and chip throwing.

Arcola Broomcorn Festival

The Arcola Broomcorn Festival in Arcola, Illinois, ran from Sept. 6 through Sept. 8 and celebrated all things related to broomcorn, a plant that can be dried and bound together to make brooms.

Aside from making brooms, festivalgoers could enjoy arts and crafts, live music, a 5K and 10K and a broom-sweeping contest. A parade featuring the Lawn Rangers, a lawn mower drill team that has been a staple event since 1980, also was on the agenda.

World Chicken Festival

The World Chicken Festival in London, Kentucky, runs from Sept. 26 to Sept. 29 in Laurel County, the birthplace of Kentucky Fried Chicken, according to Thrillist.

The festival is four days of fun that includes a “Rooster tail” mullet contest, Colonel Sanders impersonation competitions, live entertainment featuring the Gin Blossoms, carnival rides and the world’s largest stainless-steel skillet.

Nearby in Corbin, the Sanders Café & Museum highlights the 11 herbs and spices of the original KFC recipe and other memorabilia. This location is also on the National Register of Historic Places.

Trailing of the Sheep Festival

The Trailing of the Sheep Festival in Sun Valley, Idaho, runs from Oct. 2 to Oct. 6 and highlights 1,500 sheep as they embark on their annual migration through Main Street in Ketchum.

Event highlights include sheep storytelling, a sheep jam, farm-to-table dinners, wooly items for purchase, sheepdog trials and a Q&A with sheep ranchers.

FireAnt Festival

The FireAnt Festival in Marshall, Texas, is on Oct. 12 and celebrates its 42nd celebration this year.

The festival began in 1982 to heighten morale during a period of economic hardship and, according to Thrillist, the name was given at random just because it sounded nice and fun.

The event is characterized by fire ant mascots; a parade; the Diaper Derby; a chicken chunkin’ contest; a fire ant calling contest; and a gurning contest, which is about making the most horrible and grotesque facial expressions possible.

… To each their own!

Fall fun at the beach: A powwow, greyhounds and crafts: Fall festivals and events at the Delaware beaches

North American Wife Carrying Championship

The North American Wife Carrying Championship in Newry, Maine, on Oct. 12 is self-explanatory.

The sport of wife-carrying began in Finland due to the local legend of a robber stealing food and women from the towns he pillaged. Now, it’s an annual sport competition – in its 23rd year – that requires participants to carry their partners through a dry and muddy 278-yeard obstacle course. Partners can be carried fireman-style, piggyback or in the Estonian carry, which is flipped upside down with legs around the runner’s shoulders.

Wondering why people do this? The winning team wins their partner’s weight in beer and five times their weight in cash.

Bridge Day

Bridge Day in Fayetteville, West Virginia, is on Oct. 19 and celebrates New River Gorge, the 63rd National Park.

The event is held annually on the third Saturday in October and focuses on the allure of jumping off or rappelling down the park’s 876-foot-tall bridge, which BASE jumpers have done since 1980. The bridge is the world’s second-longest arch bridge.

BASE jumping stands for the four categories of fixed objects that can be jumped from: buildings, antennas (radio masts), spans (bridges) and earth (cliffs).

Texas Bigfoot Conference

The Texas Bigfoot Conference in Jefferson, Texas, is on Oct. 18 and Oct. 19 and honors the city’s name as “The Bigfoot Capital of Texas,” according to Thrillist.

Although the location of Bigfoot varies according to witness accounts, the Texas Bigfoot Research Center reports a long history of sightings in the state. The annual conference features dinners, Bigfoot enthusiasts and speakers.

Conference attendees also can stop by the Bigfoot statue in the Port Jefferson History and Nature Center. The area between the train bridge and the entrance is known as “Bigfoot Alley.”

Punkin Chunkin’

Punkin Chunkin’ in Clayton, New York, is on Oct. 19 and leans into medieval fun.

Attendees build their own catapults and trebuchets to launch pumpkins into the St. Lawrence River, with many donning Viking helmets with horns. The pumpkins reach 150 miles per hour and reach at least 1,000 feet. Other activities include a farmers market, live music, a kids’ competition and a barbecue contest.

West Coast Giant Pumpkin Regatta

The West Coast Giant Pumpkin Regatta in Tualatin, Oregon, is on Oct. 20 and is hosted by the Pacific Giant Vegetable Growers, whose goal is to grow “obscenely large vegetables,” according to Thrillist.

The regatta is the main event and features fifteen competitors dressed in costumes as they race in giant hollowed-out pumpkins with a kayak paddle on the Lake of the Commons. Other events are the 5K, a Terminator pumpkin weigh-off and pumpkin golf.

Fall festivals in Delaware: Delaware fall festivals you must hit up in 2024, for kids and adults

Woolly Worm Festival

The Woolly Worm Festival in Banner Elk, North Carolina, is on Oct. 19 and Oct. 20 and celebrates the woolly worm.

Some people believe that the hue of each of the worm’s 13 brown segments will predict how severe the following 13 weeks of winter will be, dubbed the Woolly Worm Forecast. Darker colors signal harsher weather for a given week while lighter colors mean more agreeable conditions.

The festival highlights the tradition and also includes vendors selling pottery, photography and worm houses and hosts a worm race. Winning worms get a cash prize and are used to predict the weather of the upcoming winter.

The Emma Crawford Coffin Races and Festival

In Manitou Springs, Colorado, the Emma Crawford Coffin Races and Festival is on Oct. 26 this year and celebrates Emma Crawford, a woman who was sick with tuberculosis and went to the town for its healing mineral water.

The mineral water did not turn Crawford’s health around and she later died, requesting for her casket to be buried atop a mountain. When Manitou Springs flooded years later, her casket was unearthed and slid down the mountain into the town.

The story inspired the town’s coffin races of today, which feature costumed teams of five racing through the town in heats, hoping to win prizes like “best Emma,” “best coffin” and “best entourage.” Aside from the festival, the town is big into Halloween and hosts movie nights and ghost tours throughout the month.

Tarantula Awareness Festival

The Tarantula Awareness Festival in Coarsegold, California, is on Oct. 30 and aims to educate people about the California Brown Tarantula during spider mating season in October.

Halloween and spider fun come together for events like scream-offs, a costume parade, a rice of spiders, a pumpkin cheesecake contest, a tarantula poem contest and the hairy leg contest for humans.

PA Bacon Fest

The PA Bacon Fest is a two-day festival on Nov. 2 and Nov. 3 in Easton, Pennsylvania, that celebrates the beloved food. Thrillist reports that the event has been named one of the top five bacon fests.

During the festival, attendees will find live entertainment, a bacon-eating contest (complete with a big trophy), a bacon and craft beer pairing, a hog calling contest, a mascot dash for bacon and bacon-related costumes and pig and wiener dog races. Plenty of bacon-themed food will be in store, too.

Got a tip or a story idea? Contact Krys’tal Griffin at kgriffin@delawareonline.com.

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Delaware

Delaware Supreme Court upholds reforms to curb ‘DExit’ concerns

Published

9 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

Delaware Supreme Court upholds reforms to curb ‘DExit’ concerns

Karl Baker
| Spotlight Delaware

This story was produced by Spotlight Delaware as part of a partnership with Delaware Online/The News Journal. For more about Spotlight Delaware, visit www.spotlightdelaware.org.

A Delaware law passed last year in the wake of escalating assaults on the state’s corporate brand shielded powerful company leaders from facing certain lawsuits brought by smaller investors.

What it didn’t do was violate the Delaware Constitution, the state Supreme Court ruled on Friday, Feb. 27.

More than three months after hearing arguments, the justices ruled that the corporate law reform – known as Senate Bill 21 – did not strip Delaware’s prominent Court of Chancery of its constitutional authority to decide when a business deal is fair.

“The General Assembly’s enactment of SB 21 falls within the ‘broad and ample sweep’ of its legislative power,” the justices stated.

The ruling ends a bruising fight in Delaware over when the state’s business court should allow small-time investors to interrogate insider deals struck within companies by founders or other business leaders.

The ruling also averts what could have been an embarrassment for the state’s legal and political establishment had the high court overturned the law.

More than a year ago, Tesla CEO Elon Musk — the world’s richest person — was calling on business leaders to move their companies’ legal homes out of Delaware. Musk had launched the campaign, which became known as “DExit,” after a Delaware Chancery Court judge ruled that he could not accept a multibillion-dollar pay package from Tesla.

Just as the campaign appeared to be gaining a foothold, Gov. Matt Meyer, legislative leaders, and Delaware attorneys who represent corporations threw their collective heft behind SB 21.

They argued then that the legislation amounted to a “course correction” that would bring the state’s business courts back into alignment with rulings from a decade ago. Many also said the bill was needed to pacify executives who were considering following Musk’s calls to move their companies’ legal homes out of Delaware.

In response, a cadre of critics — which included national law professors, pension fund attorneys, and a handful of progressives within the Delaware legislature — derided SB 21 as a “billionaires bill.”

Some also argued that the legislation was the latest in a string of recent changes to Delaware corporate law that have shifted the state away from protecting shareholder rights and toward giving greater deference to powerful executives.

Meyer and others SB 21 supporters rejected those characterizations last year. And on Friday, he celebrated the Supreme Court’s ruling.

In a statement, he said the decision affirms that “Delaware is the gold standard locale for global companies to do business.” He also stated that the number of companies that maintain their legal home in Delaware had increased throughout 2025 despite the DExit campaign.

“In short, SB 21 is working, and I’m glad it will continue to be the law,” Meyer said.

The legal arguments for SB 21

When arguing against SB 21 in front of the Supreme Court last fall, one attorney asserted that the new law removed the Chancery Court’s time-honored and constitutional duty to say what is fair – or equitable – in a business dispute.

The attorney, Gregory Varallo, argued that by removing a shareholders’ ability to sue their company, the law reduced what he described as the immutable power of the Court of Chancery to oversee a “complete system of equity.”

During his arguments, Varallo also offered the justices an unusual acknowledgement, stating that he knew that his stance was unpopular — and that he understood “well the pressures on this court.”

The comments were a likely reference to the consensus of big business groups and the state’s political establishment that believed SB 21 was necessary for Delaware to remain the world’s preeminent corporate domicile.

Following Varallo, Washington, D.C.-based attorney Jonathan C. Bond defended SB 21, in part, by characterizing his opponents arguments as unprecedented. If adopted, he said they would imperil several existing Delaware laws that go back decades.

He also argued that changing the rules of corporate law – as SB 21 did – “is the same as wiping out jurisdiction merely because it makes some plaintiff’s claims harder.”

Also arguing in favor of SB 21 during the hearing was William Savitt, an attorney with the Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz – among the most prominent corporate law firms in the country.

Last spring, Meyer hired Savitt’s firm to represent the state in the legal defense of SB 21 for a budget rate of $100,000. By comparison, Wachtell Lipton charged Twitter $90 million in 2022 to ferry that company through its arduous, four-month-long acquisition by Elon Musk.

Wachtell’s client list also includes Mark Zuckerberg and other Meta executives and board members, who last summer settled a seven-year-long, multibillion-dollar shareholder lawsuit in the Delaware Chancery Court.

During his arguments on SB 21, Savitt said equity as determined by judges must follow the statutes created by the legislature, and “not displace the law.”

“No natural reading of the words (of the Delaware Constitution) support plaintiff’s position,” he said.

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Delaware

Police identify victim of Wilmington motorcycle crash

Published

21 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

Police identify victim of Wilmington motorcycle crash

State police identified 29-year-old Brian Silva of New Castle as the victim of a fatal motorcycle crash in Wilmington.

Silva was riding a Harley-Davidson northbound on Dupont Highway approaching Millside Drive in Wilmington around 3:30 p.m. on Feb. 27 when it collided with the rear of a stopped Lexus at that intersection, police said. Silva was ejected from the motorcycle. He was taken to the hospital, where he died.

Delaware State Police are still investigating this incident, and anyone with information is encouraged to reach out to them or to Delaware Crime Stoppers.

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Delaware

When will Delaware warm up? After snow, ice Tuesday, temps will rise

Published

1 day ago

March 1, 2026

Press Room

When will Delaware warm up? After snow, ice Tuesday, temps will rise

Meteorological winter has ended and we’ve entered spring.

However, there’s still a last winter blast hitting Delaware early this week before a spring warm up hits at the end of the week.

Here’s a look at the Delaware forecast.

Will Delaware see more snow?

After a brisk Monday, March 2 with sunny skies and highs only reaching 35 degrees, there’s a chance of snow after 1 a.m. Tuesday, March 3 with freezing rain after 4 a.m. in New Castle County. Snow and freezing rain are expected before noon Tuesday, March 3. The county may receive less than a half inch of accumulation.

In Kent County and Sussex County, there’s a chance of snow and freezing rain after 1 a.m. Tuesday, March 3.

When will it warm up in Delaware?

It will start feeling like spring as warmer air moves into the First State on Tuesday evening, March 3, but wet weather is coming as well.

Rain is predicted from Tuesday, March 3 through Friday, March 5, but spring-like temperatures will make it bearable. In New Castle County temperatures will range from the mid-50s on Wednesday, March 3 to the 60s on Thursday, March 4 and Friday, March 5. Kent County should see temperatures in the 60s and Sussex County will see 70s during the mid- to later part of the week

What’s the weekend forecast?

Remember when you were daydreaming about warm weather during the polar vortex or blizzard? Well, it is coming next weekend.

The forecast is calling for sunny to partly sunny skies throughout Delaware on Saturday, March 7 and Sunday, March 8. Highs will reach the upper 60s in the north to the low 70s in the south.

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