Pancake Day Events Start With The Breakfast

Start Pancake Day off right with breakfast at Activity Center

Start working up an appetite—the pancakes and sausage will be ready at 6 a.m. at the Pancake Day Breakfast Tuesday. The breakfast is from 6-10 a.m. at the Seward County Event Center, and admission is a Pancake Day button, which can be purchased for $4 at the Hall of Fame or at the door. Those who attend the breakfast will also receive a free Pancake Day souvenir program book (one per family).
The breakfast program will start at 7:30 a.m. and will include introduction of this year’s racers, as well as remarks by Devon and Lesley Byrne of Olney, England, and other guests.
Youth Races begin at 10:30 a.m. at 4th and Lincoln, followed by the Men’s Pacer Race at 11:45 a.m.
The main event, the International Pancake Day Race, will begin at 11:55 a.m.
Pancake Day merchandise will be for sale at the breakfast and for the remainder of the day. For more information, visit our web site at www.pancakeday.net <http://www.pancakeday.net> or call 620-624-6423.

Public invited to Shriving Service and Live Web Chat with Olney

The public is invited to attend the Shriving Service at 12:15 p.m. Tuesday at First United Methodist Church. The speaker this year with be the Rev. Ron Wilson. Prizes will be presented to the winners at the conclusion of the Shriving Service and a live video chat with Olney, England, is set for 1:15 p.m., also at First United Methodist Church.

Traditional Prizes to be presented
Each year the race winner receives an engraved silver tray, and from Olney, an Olney hymnal, which will be presented this year by Devon and Lesley Byrne of Olney.
The tray is donated each year by the Bartel family, who now own Susann’s Custom Jewelers in Corpus Christi, Tx. Olney’s winner receives an identical engraved tray as a gift from Liberal each year.
The Bartels are carrying on a family tradition. Colton’s parents, Audie and Karla Bartel, along with son Colton and his wife, Morgan, have donated the engraved silver trays for more than two decades. Their former business in Liberal, Collins’ Diamond Jewelers, began donating the trays in the 1960s.

Olney Hymnal a unique and cherished race prize

Pancake Day, or Shrove Tuesday, is the day before Lent, and each year after the race, the community attends a shriving service. In fact, a shriving service is how Pancake Day racing started.

In Olney, the Pancake Race tradition dates back more than 500 years to 1445. A woman engrossed in using up cooking fats (forbidden during Lent) was making pancakes. Hearing the church bells ring calling everyone to the shriving service, she grabbed her head scarf (required in church) and ran to the church, skillet and pancake in hand and still apron-clad. In following years, neighbors got into the act and it became a race to see who could reach the church first.

The verb shrive (shrove, shriven) comes from the Old English verb scrifan, “to decree, decree after judgment, impose a penance upon (the penitent), hear the confession of," according to the American Heritage Dictionary. Shrove Tuesday is the day to reflect, to seek penance and get ready for Lent, and so we have the shriving service, the religious component of the holiday.

One hymn that is always sung during the shriving service in Liberal is “Amazing Grace,” a song that is especially meaningful to the Pancake Day Race winner each year. Among the array of prizes she receives— the tiara, the trophy, the silver tray, the medal, and the roses— is a small book, bound in green cloth and imprinted on the front with a gold silhouette of St. Peter and St. Paul’s Church in Olney, England.

This is the Olney Hymnal, the traditional gift to the race winner each year from Olney. The most famous hymn in the book is “Amazing Grace,” penned by John Newton when he was the curate of the church in Olney between 1765-1780. The Olney Hymns were first published in February 1779, and are the combined work of Newton (1725–1807) and his poet friend, William Cowper (1731–1800).