Man Tops 'Idiot' Competition
Story, Ind. April 9, 2005
(AP) The competition was fierce and foolish, but a man who accidentally sawed through a live wire and topped that by wrecking his truck hours after buying it more than earned the honorary title "Village Idiot."
Mark Carmichael's blunders won him the good-natured award that's been handed out for years in the tiny Brown County town of Story. The winner is whoever gets the most votes from regulars at the Story Inn's saloon.
Carmichael, the inn's maintenance man, won in part for an incident in which he cut through a live wire while using a circular saw to replace the inn's galvanized steel roof. But he also damaged his just-purchased 1998 Dodge truck -- the day after he got it -- by getting it stuck atop a whiskey barrel planter outside the inn.
His foolishness earned the 27-year-old a $100 bar tab at the Story Still.
(competition was fierce, says the inkeeper)
For example, two Story Inn regulars were nominated for knocking themselves unconscious while opening their car doors. Another was nominated for burning down his front porch after not fully extinguishing a cigarette in a full ashtray. . .
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/04/09/national/main687009.shtml