Organizers hope you get your buns to the Fredonia Sausage Fest, a silly way to build community

Ashley Houser, left, and Jennifer Bacani McKenney serve on the committee that hosted Sausage Fest 2024. (Submitted by Jennifer Bacani McKenney)

Ask Urban Dictionary what a “sausage fest” is, and you get this back: “a party of only guys (or at least 80% guys), where there is a substantial abundance of wiener.”

Given that ribald definition, my grandmother — in fact, both of them — would shudder to know that I asked a Kansan pastor this week what she thought about a sausage fest.

Specifically, Sausage Fest 2025, which starts Saturday in Fredonia.

“I think the part that brings the community together is just to have fun watching people overfill their bellies with hot dogs or running a race around the square carrying a sausage,” said Alice Purvis, who leads the congregation at First United Methodist Church in Fredonia, a town in the southeast quadrant of Kansas with about 2,000 people. “You know, there’s just a silliness in it that I think is awesome.”

Double meanings and dad jokes are at the core of Sausage Fest. Here’s a partial rundown for 2025.

In the morning, you could jog in the 5K — but why not do the Wiener Walk instead?

The Haute Dawg contest is not in fact just for dogs. You can dress up any animal in a costume for the competition. A few years ago at Sausage Fest, you would have seen a goat strutting the stage. Lady Baba was the goat’s stage name.

Next up: The Hot Dog Eating Contest. Each year, Purvis cheers on her son Michael, who joins others on the event’s stage, a repurposed flat-bed trailer. The gathered crowd watches to see who can eat the most hot dogs in seven minutes.

“Whoever the winner is, their stomach might be really full, but they’re also pretty happy because they won,” Purvis said. “And yeah, Michael usually has to take a little while to walk around and get back to normal orientation.”

The indigestion continues during Wiener Weway at 7 p.m. For that event, contestants chug a beer, eat a hot dog and then pass a baton — in this case, it’s kielbasa — in between their running.

Before the night wraps with the Chorizo Challenge Arm Wrestling Tournament, Fredonians will watch the Mr. Hotlink Pageant. The winner will showcase a talent and deliver a speech, which usually panders to the crowd by extolling the virtues of Fredonia.

If you win one of the events, you receive $100 — plus a medal. You might see some of the reigning champions wearing their medals from last year, an organizer said. 

Hosting an event that features such silly sausage names was the brainstorm of Jennifer Bacani McKenney, a local physician and community advocate. Bacani McKenney said she was flying back from Las Vegas and sat next to a Hollywood producer who gave her the idea of creating a signature hometown event for Fredonia.

Local folks, including Bacani McKenney’s partners at her medical clinic, help organize the one-day festival of naughtily named nonsense.

“I mean, honestly, we’re not shy about anything,” Bacani McKenney said about her fellow medical staff. “We deal with penises, vaginas, everything, all day long. So we’re not shy about any of that stuff. … In the end, it ends up being a really good thing, in a very sneaky way.”

When Bacani McKenney talks to students about rural medicine, she brings up the festival — and not because the hot dog eating contest bends typical dietary advice. 

“If you’re a doctor in a small town, the things you can do outside of the exam room for your patients and your community is pretty much limitless,” Bacani McKenney said. “Be creative. Have fun. Be part of the community. Don’t be the doctor that’s just stuffy in the exam room. Make a difference in the whole community.”

Sausage Fest no longer features a best-dressed pig contest (the pigs got too angry) or wiener dog races (dachshunds are too much in demand as rentals for events). However, you can still see Hurtin’ for a Squirtin’ this year, Bacani McKenney said. 

“Oh! That’s our dirtiest one,” she said. “But not just the title, but literally also.” 

Because Bacani McKenney serves as the county’s health officer, she has access to boxes of hazmat suits from the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“So we let people put those on, and they have a facemask, gloves and little booties for their feet,” Bacani McKenney said. “And then they get a ketchup and mustard bottle that’s actually filled with fingerpaint. They spray each other and have a little spray fight.” 

When it’s all done, participants pose for a photo inside a frame that says, “I was hurtin’ for a squirtin’ at Fredonia Sausage Fest.”

Cultivate Fredonia organizes the festival, which often raises $10,000 to $15,000 through food and drink sales plus sponsorships, Bacani McKenney said. The festival’s programming starts at 8 a.m. and stretches until midnight.

“What you’ll see is a town square that’s kind of booming with community people that are talking and interacting, and maybe have a beer in their hand,” Bacani McKenney said. “I think just seeing people in a small town, interacting, talking, walking around in a safe space where everybody’s having fun.”

Eric Thomas teaches visual journalism and photojournalism at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.