Little Rock attorney John Baker, like many kids growing up in Arkansas, liked to skip rocks anytime he was near the water.
“I take my kids canoeing all over Arkansas, and we always skip rocks,” Baker said.
When he and his brother, Troy Baker of Little Rock, were skipping rocks one day, they started wondering who had the world record. That would be Kurt “Mountain Man” Steiner of Pennsylvania, who achieved 88 skips.
That got the competitive brothers to talking. Rock-skipping competitions are common in the North, but Baker said he’d never heard of one in Arkansas.
“If it’s good enough to have competitive festivals in the North on this, we were surprised there’s nothing in the South, and somebody needed to start one,” he said.
Baker became that somebody.
The first Great Southern Stone-Skipping Championships will begin at 9 a.m. Sept. 3 on Greers Ferry Lake in Fairfield Bay. The event will include categories for children 12 and younger and adults 13 and older.
Baker formed a nonprofit organization, Great Southern Stone-Skipping Championships Inc., which took awhile, he said. Then he recruited two friends — Alex Thayer and Gregg Petersen, both of Little Rock — to join him on a board of directors.
“All of us grew up skipping rocks and having a good time,” Baker said.
“I thought this would be sort of a family-fun, humorous, spectator-competitor fundraiser, and that’s kind of how it was born,” he said.
He had to get a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to hold the event, too.
The entry fee is $10, and proceeds will go to the Arkansas Food Bank, which will in turn allocate the money to four food banks — one each in Greers Ferry and Clinton, and two in Choctaw.
The Arkansas Food Bank has a relationship with these food banks, so “it couldn’t be more perfect,” Baker said.
Claude Ruiz, who started Choctaw Food Bank Inc. with his wife, Karen, said the event itself is “interesting.”
“It’s really different. I never heard of it. It sounds like fun, though; it sounds like a fun event,” he said, adding that any proceeds from the competition will be appreciated.
Ruiz said the food bank serves 400 families a week, about 1,200 people.
Scott Spencer, chairman of the board of Van Buren County Food’s for Life pantry in Clinton, said he thinks the idea is “great.” He and his wife, Betty, who helps run the pantry, said they’d never heard of such an event.
“I’m excited about it myself,” Betty said.
Scott, who is originally from California, said he skipped rocks as a kid, but not in competitions.
He said the food pantry feeds 700 to 800 individuals a month, and he goes to the Arkansas Food Bank once a month. The pantry can always use more money and food, the couple said.
“We need any support we can get; it’s very much appreciated,” Betty said.
Brandon Mathews, gifts coordinator for the Arkansas Food Bank, said Baker contacted him with the fundraising idea for food-bank members in those three cities.
Mathews — like so many others — had never heard of such an event.
“This was the first,” Mathews said. “I thought that was pretty cool and out of this world to have here in Arkansas.
“We’re excited; it seems like it should be a pretty good event. It’s Labor Day weekend, so a lot of people will be at the lake. It should be a pretty good turnout.”
Baker said the event location is “a really great fishing cove” at the Fairfield Bay Marina.
Baker, who said his family has a weekend home in
Fairfield Bay, said he’s skipped rocks there before.
“It’s the perfect cove to skip rocks in because it’s calm, and it’s long,” he said. “You could really go the length of it if you’re good.”
He said that at the world championship stone-skipping event in Scotland, “the crowd just goes nuts when one of the competitors skips a rock that goes on forever.”
Baker said the Fairfield Bay site also has plenty of parking and bathrooms.
“It’s going to be a really good place for people to sit with their friends and family,” he said.
Although stone-skipping may seem like a simple activity, Baker studied the rules of competitions in other states. The rules are listed on the Great Southern Stone-Skipping Championships Facebook page, he said.
“It’s a pretty complex set of rules,” he said. “There’s a big [competition] up near Canada that has some web presence, and I studied how they did it. I kind of thought about how I thought it could flow. The short of it is, each participant gets three skips, and we tally them.”
Granted, a stone zooming across the water can be hard to see, Baker said.
“We have neutral judges who observe only with a naked eye. They caucus and determine the number of skips,” Baker said. “We’re recruiting several [Veterans of Foreign Wars] members with keen eyesight.”
The top five contestants from each flight will go to a skip-off, and each will receive five skips.
“They cannot skip a man-made rock; this must be a natural rock,” he said.
Although the shore has plenty of rocks from which to choose, Baker assured the Corps of Engineers when he received a permit for the event that the shore won’t be picked clean.
“There a gillion along the shore from which to choose, or they can bring their own ringers,” Baker said.
Baker said serious stone-skippers bring their own rocks. He said from what he’s seen on YouTube videos, serious stone-skippers often show up with an arsenal of handpicked stones stored in plastic tubs.
“There could be some very serious people show up with their own winners,” he said.
Baker, whose record is 20 skips, said he won’t compete — he’ll serve as one of the judges.
He said his three sons likely will be there, although he’s not sure whether they’ll compete.
“I have no idea what to expect since this is our virgin year,” he said.
Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas is serving as a presenting sponsor of the event “to help get us off the ground,” Baker said.
A festival is scheduled for the area that weekend, he said, so a few food trucks may set up early near the stone-skipping event.
Baker said that in addition to presenting a unique event, he wants to make a point with the championships.
“With all due respect to my friends in the North, I think the boys and girls who grew up in the Ozarks and the Appalachians — I think we skipped more rocks than them because we were outdoors more,” Baker said. “It stands to reason that superior stone skippers would hail from the South.
“I’ll bet you there’s some Arkansan out there who can out-skip any Northerner.”
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.