Biggest ball of twine

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There are several claims to the world's biggest ball of twine record.

The Johnson Twine Ball

Contents

[edit] Largest sisal twine ball built by one person

Darwin, Minnesota is the home of a ball by Francis A. Johnson. It is 4 meters (12 ft) in diameter and weighs 4,900 kg (10,400 lbs). He started his obsession in March 1950 and wrapped four hours every day for 23 weeks. It is currently housed in a specially made gazebo across from the town park on Main Street 45°05′47″N 94°24′37″W / 45.096332°N 94.410276°W / 45.096332; -94.410276, and the town celebrates "Twine Ball Day" the second Saturday in August every year. An adjacent volunteer-run, free to visit, museum and gift shop has displays on the ball's history as well as selling a variety of souvenirs.

[edit] Largest sisal twine ball built by a community

Another ball was started in Cawker City, Kansas by Frank Stoeber. He saw Johnson's ball as a challenge and started his own. Stoeber had 1.6 million feet (490,000 m) of twine on his 11-foot-diameter (3.4 m) ball when he died in 1974. Cawker City built an open-air gazebo over Stoeber's ball where every August a "Twine-a-thon" is held and more twine is added to the ball. As of 2006, the twine ball has reached 17,886 pounds (8,111 kg), a circumference of 40 feet (12 m), and a length of 7,801,766 feet (2,377,978 m). At a length of over 1,475 miles, it would reach as far as Boston, the Bahamas, Cuba, Mexico City, Vancouver, Hudson Bay, or Canada's Northwest Territories from Cawker City if it were unwound. This is now the world's largest and heaviest ball of sisal twine.[1]

[edit] Heaviest ball of twine ever built

In Lake Nebagamon, Wisconsin, James Frank Kotera, who likes to be known as JFK, claims to have made the biggest ball of twine ever built. He started it in 1979 and is still working. JFK estimates, by measuring the weight of each bag of twine that he winds on, that the ball weighs 19,336 pounds (8,770 kg), making it the heaviest ball of twine ever built. The ball is housed in an open-air enclosure in JFK's lawn. The ball has a smaller companion, "Junior", that is made of string.

[edit] Largest twine ball ever built

Yet another ball claims the title of largest ball of twine in the world and this one has been certified by the Guinness Book of World Records.[citation needed] It is owned by Ripley's Believe It or Not in Branson, Missouri and was reportedly built by millionaire J. C. Payne of Valley View, Texas.[citation needed] By using a "system of pulleys" Payne claims he built the ball in four years all by himself. The ball measures 41.5 feet (12.6 m) in circumference.

[edit] Cultural references

  • In the 1983 film, National Lampoon's Vacation, the character Clark Griswold (played by Chevy Chase), declares "Hey, hey, easy kids. Everybody in the car. Boat leaves in two minutes... or perhaps you don't want to see the second largest ball of twine on the face of the earth, which is only four short hours away?"
  • "Weird Al" Yankovic's album UHF - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack and Other Stuff has a song called "The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota". Although ostensibly about the ball in Darwin, Minnesota, Yankovic takes artistic license with the statistics.
    • In a case of life imitating art, postcards that read "Greetings from the Twine Ball, wish you were here," a fictitious invention of Yankovic's, is now an attraction in Darwin. The Twineball Inn was a restaurant (not a motel) that has since closed.
    • Yankovic refers to the ball itself, and thus his previous work, in the video for "White & Nerdy", wherein a Trivial Pursuit card which includes the question "In what city is the largest ball of twine built by one man?" appears on screen.
  • The Sam & Max Hit the Road adventure game by LucasArts includes a stop at a Biggest Ball of Twine, which is about 50 feet (15 m) tall with a rotating restaurant on top - this fictional ball of twine is located at Central Dis, Minnesota. An exhibit in the museum at its base claims that its mass will eventually cause the Earth to gravitate towards the sun, destroying the planet. When the characters look at the ball of twine, the following exchange takes place:
Sam: It's things like this that make me wish I were Canadian.
Docent: They've got one of these too, but half of it's French.
  • In one episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, Susan Keats (Emma Caulfield) mentions the Cawker City Ball of Twine to her boyfriend, Brandon Walsh (Jason Priestly) while they are planning a cross-country trip for that summer. Keats mentions the ball of twine as being off of Interstate 80. I-80 does not run through Kansas, and Cawker City is located along US 24, some 50 miles north of Interstate 70, the main east-west Interstate through Kansas.
  • In one episode of Time Squad, George W. Bush tries to lift the spirits of Americans by building the biggest ball of twine.
  • In Nora Ephron's film Michael, a hedonistic angel badgers two reporters into taking him on a road trip under the pretense of seeing the World's Biggest Ball of Twine.
  • In the Supernatural Season 2 episode 'The Usual Suspects', Sam Winchester is questioned by police about his road trip. He lies, 'We saw the second largest ball of twine in the continental U.S.'
  • In the Covert Affairs series, season two episode one, upon Annie Walkers return from "Lamar, Missouri" her sister asks who knew the largest ball of twine is in Missouri.
  • Musician Lucas Westcott refers to the biggest ball of twine in Kansas in his song "Come On".

[edit] References

  1. ^ World's Largest Twine Ball

[edit] External links

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