'74 Ford takes Ugly Truck Contest
By Ty Johnson
Published in News on October 9, 2011 1:50 AM
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News-Argus/MICHAEL K. DAKOTA
The ugly truck contest at the Wayne Regional Agricultural Fair had a winner in George Crumpacker, who drove his 1974 Ford to the winner's circle. Fair Princess Charlotte Kornegay, Crumpacker and Bill Johnson pose after the big win.
Riding around in her papa's old truck taking trash to the dump, Queen of the Fair Charlotte Kornegay gathered a bit of first-hand experience at what an ugly truck looks like.
But the crop of pickups that paraded past her Saturday afternoon likely made her papa's farm truck look like a luxury vehicle.
Ms. Kornegay was a special judge for the Wayne Regional Agricultural Fair's Ugly Truck contest Saturday -- a role she took very seriously.
Well, almost.
As the trucks passed her by and participants pointed out the eccentricities they felt truly set their trucks apart as the ugliest in the field, one participant asked if she would like to smell his interior.
"Do I have to?" she instinctively asked.
In the end, Ms. Kornegay went with her favorite ugly truck, a 1974 Ford F-350 George Cumpacker ordered decades before Ms. Kornegay was born.
"I wanted something I could use," Crumpacker, 71, said of when he first purchased his truck, adding that just the day before he had used it to pull up a stump.
He ordered his truck asking for it to be stripped to just the essentials, and, with some modifications through the years, including the wood off of an even older truck, it took home the title of ugliest from this year's fair.
Ms. Kornegay said the '74 Ford was her favorite truck, and that she was listening as well as looking during her deliberations.
"It needs to sound rough," she said, noting that windshield cracks, trash in the pickup beds and clutter on the dashboard were other details she looked for.
Marvin Coley of Goldsboro finished second in the contest and Marlon Britt of Newton Grove took third place.