<snip>
STORY, Ind. -- The competition was fierce and foolish, but a man who accidentally sawed through a live electrical wire and topped that by wrecking his truck only hours after buying it 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.
His foolishness earned the 27-year-old a $100 bar tab.
Rick Hofstetter, who owns the inn about 40 miles south of Indianapolis, said the competition for this year's award was fierce.
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.wftv.com/irresistible/4366089/detail.html