David Milz
This year’s winner of the annual Burlington Liars Club contest is a name familiar to many West of the I families — but we hope it’s for other reasons.
David Milz, Salem School district administrator, has been announced as the winner of the annual fibbing for fun competition.
Here’s Milz’ tall tale:
I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met.â€
Those of you worried that Milz’ apparent flair with a fib might be setting a bad example given his profession, relax. Milz has that covered. As he told The Associated Press:
“I’m going to work it the other way. You can’t pull wool over the eyes of a champion liar.”
The origins of the contest, from the club’s wesbite, are:
Otis Hulett, who was famous around Burlington for his various pranks and escapades, concocted a news story. Between Christmas and New Years, it is a really slow time news-wise, and the old-timers concocted a story saying the Burlington Chief of Police, Frank Beller, policemen, and firemen sat around the station New Year’s Day seeing who could tell the biggest lie. The winner that year was told by police chief who said he had never told a lie in his life. The story made some of the newspapers, and the following year, Associated Press called and wanted to know if they were going to pick a liar again.
The lies continued to pour in each year. Hulett formed a club, incorporated it, and expanded the contest to a national level, and eventually a world wide contest with lies coming in with international addresses. The only requirement to become a card carrying member was to send in a lie and a dime. Inflation has raised the one-time fee to a dollar. It was Hulett’s perserverance that kept the club going the first fifty years. He read every lie and responded to every request for membership. This practice is continued today by the current officers of the Club.
Milz, I suppose jokingly, told the AP the honor was a resume builder. We will let you be the judge of that, but it is no doubt an attention getter. Take a look at how many results “David Milz” returns this morning in a Google News search.
