Set to go toad to toad at Woodland Planters Days

Walt Hansen Sr. has jumped along to some great lily pad in the sky. We’re sure that Woodland, and Walt’s beloved woods, will never be the same.

But Walter Hansen Jr., and Walter Hansen III, do not intend to let one of the proudest Hansen family traditions disappear. The afternoon of June 17, after the pancake breakfast, the big parade and the firemen’s barbecue, all available Hansens will hop over to Horseshoe Lake Park in order to host the 50th annual frog-jumping contest.

“We’re going to keep doing it as long as we’re still croaking,” Walter Jr. vowed.

Woodland’s 95th annual Planters Days celebration is always a big, boisterous, carefully planned and scheduled occasion — stuffed full of games and contests, carnival rides and that parade, classic car and military vehicle shows, a rock band on the night of June 17 and a community talent show on the afternoon of June 18 — but the frog-jumping contest is simply a hoot.

“There are no rules,” said Walter Junior. “Well, maybe there are a few rules.”

• Rule No. 1, he said, is that it’s all in good fun. Anybody who takes a frog-jumping contest seriously deserves what they get — which might well be frog poop on your hands.

• Rule No 2: Frogs should be caught in local ponds — and returned to local ponds. “We don’t eat them. We don’t keep them. We put them back,” Walter Jr. said.

Store-bought ringers are frowned upon. It’s easy to tell a wild frog from a frog that came from a pet shop, Walter Jr. said. “We keep our eye on those,” he said skeptically. Beautiful, pampered, high-society frogs are OK for jumping, he conceded, but they’re definitely disqualified from the frog beauty contest.

• Rule No. 3: Yes, there’s a frog beauty contest. All frogs (except those ringers covered by rule No. 2) will be adjudicated for the following bragging rights: prettiest, ugliest, biggest and smallest.

• Rule No. 4: Each frog takes three jumps from a dead stop on a platform. “We drop a quarter where they land,” Walter Jr. said. Judges tally up the distance covered. (The fourth jump is often when frogs really start to get into this event, Walter Jr. said; alas, that fourth jump is never measured. But, he added: “You should see everybody chasing frogs all over the place” once their little green athletes decide to go for glory.)

The Woodland Planters Days Official All-Time Frog Jumping Contest Record is 159 inches, Hansen reported; it was set in 1992 by Bryan Cole. By Bryan Cole’s frog, that is.

“If somebody breaks that record, they’ll get $50,” Hansen said.

Hallowed history

While the Hansen family’s long, sticky tongue is firmly inside its cheek about this annual frog-jumping business, there’s a nugget of serious history here.

For one thing, the late Walt Hansen Sr. — long known to many by the affectionate nickname “Walt of the Woods” — took out Donna, his wife-to-be, on their first date to Woodland’s Planters Day festival, so you could say their whole dynasty (dozens of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren) began at that annual occasion. And Walt Sr. went on to have everything to do with Woodland — serving on numerous town committees, lobbying for historical recognition for key local sites like the Cedar Creek Grist Mill and the Hulda Klager Lilac Gardens, and reliably playing the role of watchdog and gadfly at city council meetings. He lived near Woodland (in the Hayes neighborhood) all his life and was the area’s acknowledged historical expert. He was named Woodland’s Citizen of the Year in 2013.