Taking a deep dive into the Mid-South Fair
Early in the summer, Evan Plummer experienced what might be described as an especially terrifying and extremely literal baptism by fire when he dove into a pool from a height of 80 feet while wrapped in flames.
Plummer, 19, is glad he took the plunge. The Wisconsin native is a rookie professional high diver and the newest member of the “High Diving Pirates of the Caribbean,” a traveling performing troupe that is one of several ballyhooed attractions at the Mid-South Fair, which runs through Sept. 30 at the Landers Center in Southaven.
Launched in 1856, the Fair is just about the region’s most venerable institution: It pre-dates the Memphis Zoo, the city’s deadliest Yellow Fever epidemic and the Civil War, not to mention the Disney theme ride and Johnny Depp movie series from which the Pirates purloined their name, like so much booty from a scuttled galleon.
Consistent throughout those 162 years has been the Fair’s status as an epicenter of sensory overload. Beyond its gates is enough rainbow neon to pinwheel an eyeball, enough noise to agitate an eardrum. The aromas clash in the nasal passages like the armies of good and evil on the plain of Armageddon; the taste buds expand in anticipation or shrink in fear, depending on one’s experience with such promised treats as Red Velvet Funnel Cake, Chicken on a Stick and Footlong Corn Dogs.
The body below the neck is not immune. (And we’re talking about a lot of bodies: 108,000 people attended the 2017 Fair, organizers say.) Even the stomach may dance a jig as it contemplates such mechanical rebukes to gravity and stability as the Tilt-a-Whirl, the Blizzard, the Alien Abduction and, especially, the Firestorm, a ride that resembles an upright ring with a 63-foot diameter. Roller coaster-style cars circle the inside of this ring, carrying customers in repeated loop-de-loops that sometimes pause at the apex of the journey to hang the riders upside down so that screams and loose change can rain on the spectators below.
And then there are the so-called “dark rides” and fun houses. There’s the Tomb of Doom, a mini-roller coaster haunted house; the Mardi Gras, a walk-through attraction with
a halls of mirrors; the similar “Cuckoo Haus Fun House,” with a Teutonic theme that probably is lost on most fairgoers; and the Zombie Funhouse, a new, if inevitable, scare attraction that contains pop-up prop representations of rotting, ravenous revenants.
Not far from the zombies are the divers, the High Diving Pirates of the Caribbean, who will perform three times daily, competing for the attention of fairgoers with the Bears of Bearadise Ranch, the Luna Brothers Big Top Circus, the Show-Me Swine Racers, the Live Stingray Encounter (”How often do you get to meet-and-greet a stingray?” asked Landers Center executive director Todd Mastry), the various musical acts (William Michael Moore, Ingram Hill, 8Ball & MJG, to name a few) and the Youth Talent Contest (which Mastry describes as “the only youth talent show that can claim it found Elvis and Justin Timberlake”). Literally if not otherwise, the Pirates tower above the competition by virtue of their 80-foot-high diving platform, near the top of a crane-yourneck ladder that starts at a 25-foot wide pool.
The ladder also sprouts some lowerlevel spring boards (designed to resemble planks, as in “walk the plank”) for fancy-diving. The whole rig is appended to an inflatable “pirate ship” that is the apparent home of the five to seven diving “pirates” who will perform daily, beneath a skull-and-crossbones “Jolly Roger” flag.
The elder diver is Manuel Mendes, 46, an inveterate thrill junkie. “Every time you jump, you have a risk,” Mendes explained. “Some people like that adrenaline rush, like me.” The risk is lessened, he says, by the fact that the divers, aren’t just performers: Like a circus or carnival unit, they also erect and rig the platforms, pool, and so on, making them largely responsible for their own safety.
Mendes has been something of a mentor to Plummer. “I never jumped from higher than nine feet before I joined,” said the younger diver, crediting a college swimming instructor for connecting him with the Pirates for a particularly unusual summer job that has stretched into his first school semester. That extra 71 feet is especially intimidating because “there’s a lot more time in the air,” Plummer said, and that prolonged descent makes the driver more aware of the extremity of the fall. Also, “there’s a lot more risk” because the pool below is less than 10 feet deep, meaning divers have to take care to pull up before they hit bottom after they enter the water.
The Mid-South Fair is only Plummer’s fourth date with the Pirates, following stints at Alabama Splash Adventure near Birmingham and state fairs in New Mexico and Wisconsin. A few months ago, he added setting-himselfon-fire to his repertoire of aerial-meetsaquatic acrobatics, although it’s not certain whether the fire act will be part of the Mid-South Fair show. (For the fiery dives, he wears gloves and double layers of head-to-foot protective clothing.)
The Pirates act is owned by Watershow Productions, a company founded by Dana Kunze, 56, who holds the highdive world record (172 feet). A professional diver since he was a young teenager, when he dove off Mississippi River bridges in his home state of Minnesota, Kunze has eight different shows out on the road any given time — a Wild West Splashtacular, a Beach Party USA, and so on.
Ten years ago, the Mid-South Fair left its longtime home at (where else) the Fairgrounds in the middle of Memphis, a space that is now more or less home to Tiger Lane, a tailgating location for University of Memphis football games. Since then, the Fair has been trying to attract Memphians to Southaven, while also trying to maintain its identity while competing with its upstart rival, the Delta Fair, held earlier this month at the Agricenter in East Memphis.
Although some events are held indoors, most of the not-for-profit Fair’s attractions are spread like goodies on a picnic blanket across the large parking lot on the east side of the Landers Center arena. The Fair’s contract with the center ends next year, but “favorable preliminary conversations” indicated that both Fair and Landers Center representatives “are excited for Landers Center to be the home of the Mid-South Fair for years to come,” Mastry said.