Mike the Headless Chicken Festival Is May 31–June 1

One of my favorite festivals is headlining Fruita, Colo. in late May: the Mike the Headless Chicken Festival.

My wife, daughters, and I headed west into a strong headwind for a few of these fests in the early 2000s and they were simple, low-key affairs. Nobody lost their head.

Nowadays, though, I hear they're big, fancy—dare I say heady?—affairs, with hundreds of attendees and all sorts of intellectual activities like a Peeps eating competition and beer drinking and music.

Capital idea, I must say.

The Mike the Headless Chicken Festival began in 1999 when community leaders dredged up an old story about a Fruita rancher named Lloyd Olsen and his headstrong chicken Mike.

"In 1945, Lloyd Olsen was harvesting chickens to take into town," notes a PBS Colorado story on Mike's origin . "He severed the head of one, but inadvertently left part of the brain stem and one ear behind. This is how Mike lost his head, but kept on living."

Olsen was both surprised and amazed that his chicken survived, and after the chicken had run around a bit—the way a headless chicken is wont to do—Olsen took pity.

He began feeding Mike through Mike's neck using an eye-dropper. Mike the Chicken went on to live another 18 months, but as word of his existence spread, he became quite famous.

He ended up touring various parts of the West (as, obviously, a head-liner) and at one point was pulling in roughly $4,000 a month for Olsen and his wife. But, after 18 months of life without a top, Mike died. There appears to have been a touch of skullduggery around Mike's demise.

Apparently, Mike died while Olsen was feeding him. Something to do with a clotting or blockage with the feeding process.

"Maybe Olsen felt guilty about that," notes the PBS piece. "Maybe he was uncomfortable with how the Fruita community viewed him after he bought a new truck with some of the earnings from the chicken’s fame. Whatever the reason, Olsen buried the story along with Mike. The scrapbook was shoved into a drawer and the tale faded into Fruita’s past."

Olsen had kept scrapbook of Mike's life.

Many years later, the story of Mike the Headless Chicken surfaced while town officials—some heads of various departments—were looking at ways to top up tourism in town. They scratched their noggins. They pondered the potential. They wanted Fruita in the hearts and minds of possible Western Slope visitors.

An older chap who knew the story shared it with town officials and the Mike the Headless Chicken Festival was born.

The festival does a poster each year, as you can see above, and now it's growing so fast it seems to be headed into the Colorado Festivals Stratosphere. One of the top events in the land!

The schedule of events is here .

You should go. Don't be a chicken. And don't forget to bring a sun hat for your pate.

To volunteer for the event, go here .

Oh, you don't know what Peeps are?

Go here , and fill your brain with wonder and your body with corn syrup.....see you there!