Fat Tuesday, Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras. This Tuesday, March 1, was a holiday with many names, including International Pancake Day. Holy Family School in Great Bend started the day with pancake relay races inspired by the races held annually in Liberal, Kansas, and Olney, England.
As students assembled in the school gym, Lisa Neeland, teacher in charge at Holy Family School, asked who could explain the story behind the pancake race.
Legend has it that in 1445 in Olney, England, a woman engrossed in using up the fats in her house on Shrove Tuesday was making pancakes when she heard the church bells for the Shriving Service. Still wearing her apron, she grabbed her headscarf and ran 415 yards to the church, skillet and pancake in hand.
Neeland explained that Fat Tuesday is the day before Lent. The “fats” used up before the 40-day period of fasting would include butter and oil today. “They wanted to use that all up so during Lent they could sacrifice them,” she said.
The woman in 1445 was rewarded for her faithfulness with a kiss from the bell ringer.
In the following years, neighbors recreated the act as a race to see who could get to the church first and collect a “Kiss of Peace” from the bell ringer.
At Holy Family School, where multiple teams conducted relay races, the winners got to “blow a kiss” to the rest of the students. After the race, everyone enjoyed a pancake breakfast.
The races were re-established in England in 1948.
Liberal challenged Olney to make the race international in 1950 after R.J. Leete, president of the Liberal Jaycees, saw a picture in a magazine of the Olney women racing each other to the church. Leete contacted the Rev. Ronald Collins, Vicar of St. Peter and St. Paul’s church in Olney, and challenged Olney’s women to race again Liberal’s women as they carried skillets, flipping a pancake at the beginning and end of the race.
There was no race in 2021 because of the pandemic, but this year the event was back as an all-day celebration. Gov. Laura Kelly was in Liberal Tuesday as the event returned. In addition to the traditional international race, there was a pancake breakfast, pancake eating and flipping contests, youth and men’s races, the shriving service and a parade. Per tradition, there was an international call (nowadays a video call) between the two cities so see who had the fastest time.
This was the 75th anniversary of the “new era” when the event was re-established in England and the 73rd anniversary of the race against Liberal. The race started at 11:55 a.m. local time, which means the Olney race was at 5:55 a.m. Central Time. This year, Liberal beat Olney with a time of 1 minute 7 seconds, and Olney’s time came in at 1 minute 10 seconds. The overall standings are now 39 wins for Liberal and 31 for Olney (a winner was not declared in some years).
