Mena prepares for 39th Annual Lum and Abner Festival

The 39th annual Lum and Abner Festival will be held in Mena, Arkansas, on Friday (June 3) and Saturday (June 4) from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. each day.

The festival includes activities for all ages, live music, free concerts, arts and crafts, fishing derbies, a 3-on-3 basketball tournament, 5K run, classic car show, live reenactments and movies of the Lum and Abner shows.

Additionally, the event will feature a firefighter’s challenge, “baby crawlin'” contest, Kiddie Korner with inflatables, BBQ cook-off, and Li’l Miss and Mister Lum and Abner Pageant among other festivities.

Mena is located near the community of Pine Ridge (formerly Waters), where Chester Lauck and Norris Goff grew up and based many of the situations and characters from their hit radio show. The program has also found success in comics and films over the years. The comedy series debuted in 1931 and ran until 1954, boasting an estimated 5,000 shows (though only 1,630 episodes still exist).

From 1940 to 1946, Lauck and Goff had the opportunity to bring Lum and Abner to the big screen and did so in a string of six feature films. A seventh, Lum and Abner Abroad, was released in 1956. Originally intended to be the first three episodes of a TV series, the shows were retconned for the big screen when the series wasn’t picked up.

Lum and Abner are co-owners of the Jot ‘Em Down Store and frequently pursue get-rich-quick schemes, making them the target of arch nemesis Squire Skimp. Pine Ridge is the site of the Lum and Abner Museum, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.