Tuesday, September 17, 2024
AZLE —Sting Fling is the Azle community’s largest yearly festival. If it’s not rained out, thousands of patrons will visit the city’s Main Street this Saturday to celebrate and make merry. The annual parade, vendors, Weiner Dog Derby and other activities are treasured traditions by many local families. As older Azleities may know, many of these institutions predate Sting Fling itself.
Since at least 1974, Azle has held a community-wide festival for its residents to enjoy, though this event has not always been called Sting Fling. In the last half century, different Azle fêtes have gone by different names and have occurred at different times of the year.
Starting at the aforementioned point in the ‘70s, the Azle Jamboree took place around the Fourth of July each year and, for many years, was held at the now closed Roesser Park. It was hosted by the Azle Sertoma Club each year. It consisted of the Miss Azle Pageant, at times other contests like “ugliest pet,” mechanical bulls, local art showcases, vendors, Independence Day activities and other fun for all ages. Throughout the next decade, the jamboree would move location and dates, eventually settling in the first week of June.
While fondly remembered by many in Azle, the original jamboree would eventually find itself struggling to stay relevant among the competition. The Azle Lake Run started in 1981 and was originally held in May. Throughout the ‘80s, as the Azle Jamboree shrank in prominence, the Lake Run grew. The last time the Azle Jamboree was billed as such in the Azle News Advertiser was Thursday, May 31, 1984. The Miss Azle Pageant was relegated to a mail-in nomination and interviews in ’85 and ‘86 but returned in-person without the Azle Jamboree association in 1987.
In the interim, local churches and elementary schools held of their own hootenannies. The City of Azle held a sesquicentennial parade and fair in 1986 in celebration of Texas turning 150 years old. For the late 1980s, Azle residents would make do with the Lake Run, Sertoma Club beauty pageant and these other irregular events.
In October 1990, the earliest direct progenitor of Sting Fling would emerge with the verbosely named Eagle Mountain Bike Tour and the Azle Days Arts and Crafts Fair. In its first year, the 25-, 50- and 100-mile bike circuit around North Texas attracted 600-700 cyclists. After two years, the event’s organizers and the Azle Area Chamber of Commerce would seek to breathe new life into the event with a new name. Then-president of the chamber, Cyndi Standefer explained the history of the bike tour and craft fair event along with her motivation going forward in a January 1992 Azle News Advertiser article.
“Three years ago, some people were sitting around wondering what we could do to enhance the community,” Standefer wrote. “They came up with the bike tour and crafts festival. The idea was that down the road it could be like the Fire Ant Festival in Marshall — a whole weekend of festivities.”
Standefer said while the events were successful, their titles continued to grow wordier and more difficult to relate to out-of-town inquiries.
“To do a better job of PR, we have got to name this festival,” she had thought.
Standefer described meeting with chamber board members early one morning in 1991 to come up with a title that could encapsulate the proposed range of events. She recalled an anecdote that would stick with the other board members.
“I have an aunt who’s German,” Standefer said. “When I first told her I was moving to a town named Azle, she giggled.”
Esel, she explained, roughly pronounced like Azle means “jackass” or donkey in German. The name would have some staying power with the board members who heard it and in a January 1992 meeting, they voted to unite events under the “Jackass Jamboree” banner for a fair held in the first week of October.
This moniker wouldn’t live to see its first celebration. After enduring complaints for several weeks, the chamber surveyed public opinion through the newspaper and its own bulletin. The results were mixed but most of those that responded favored not using the new name. Two months and a split vote later, the chamber decided to instead dub the happening the Jumpin’ Jack Jamboree, a suggestion made in several survey forms. In keeping the donkey motif, the chamber would be able to stick with its planned donkey-centered vision without fear of “being banned in schools when it appears on T-shirts” or “spark fistfights when applied to Azle residents,” former Azle News editor Bob Buckel wrote. A bronze statue of the function’s proposed mascot, Jacky, and a Jack and Jenny Beauty Contest would be two examples used to tie the city back to its German soundalike. The statue, created by esteemed local artist Jack Bryant was inscribed with the slogan, “Azle: where the West really begins.”
Though without its originally intended name, Standefer was excited to see the unified gathering go forward regardless and even thought the brief controversy would help with its notoriety.
The event, by all metrics, was successful. It featured a carnival with booths, food and entertainment as well as a street dance, a demonstration from a local inventor and his “Little Pop Fly” pitching machine, a performance from the Azle Rhythmettes Drill Team, and a concluding praise service.
The 1992 Jumpin’ Jack Jamboree would be the first of many. Azle would hold this fall fest every year for 16 years. While its events, date and location might change from year to year, for a generation of Azleites, the Jumpin’ Jack Jamboree meant fun and community-wide celebration when cooler weather came around.
In 2008, the Azle Area Chamber of Commerce decided to revamp the fun fair yet again. According to former Azle News editor Edwin Newton, a new name was crafted to foster community pride and support for the Azle High School Hornet athletic programs; Sting Fling was born.
With concerns that the jamboree had been too spread out along Main Street, the first Sting Fling was largely concentrated around parking lots on Industrial Avenue and Roe Street. Along with new elements, the festival also retained many older traditions.
The parade down Main Street, now a hallmark of the event, only began a year before at the last Jumpin’ Jack Jamboree. The Weiner Dog Derby and the annual car show predate Sting Fling, with the two being in their ninth and eighth iterations at the time of the name change. The first Sting Fling showed that its new name and layout would present no problems for organizers, attracting a reported 8,000-10,000 people.
While some of the event’s dates and details have since shifted, Sting Fling today remains largely the same with its scope of activities. This year marks Azle’s 16th Sting Fling, making this iteration of the celebration tied for the longest lasting to date.
While the Azle Sting Fling may not get as many out-of-towners as the Anahuac Gator Fest or Poteet Strawberry Festival, it remains an important local mainstay and a source of pride for the community. Lifelong residents of the area can only wait and see how it may continue to change and grow into the future.
