The Pancake Day Certificate of Liberal, Kansas

The Pancake Day Certificate of Liberal, Kansas

     IN THE CHRISTIAN LITURGICAL CALENDAR, Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, the period leading up to Easter when Christians commemorate the forty days that Jesus spent fasting and praying in the wilderness with their own acts of sacrifice. The days preceding Ash Wednesday are known as Shrovetide, when Christians prepare for the Lenten season through rituals of self-reflection and repentance (the term derives from the verb “shrive”, which means to receive absolution through confession). The last day before Lenten season begins is called Shrove Tuesday and is traditionally marked by acts of indulgence in those culinary pleasures that believers will abstain from during Lent. Among English speaking Christians in particular, Shrove Tuesday is commonly known as Pancake Day, since pancakes are made of rich ingredients like eggs, milk, and sugar that need to be used up before the Lenten period of sacrifice begins.

     In England, one variant on Pancake Day celebrations takes the form of pancake races, a practice that is traced back to the town of Olney, Buckinghamshire, in the mid-fifteenth century. There, it is said that a tardy housewife busy making pancakes once ran to Shrovetide service at the sound of the church bells with her frying pan (and pancake) still in hand, a story which became the basis for Olney's centuries-long tradition of pancake racing. Since 1950, a version of this race has been practiced as a good-natured transatlantic competition between Olney, England, and Liberal, Kansas, a city just shy of 20,000 people that serves as the seat of Seward County.

     The piece of novelty currency featured here, styled as a “Pancake Day Certificate”, celebrates the annual running of these parallel races.

Front (above) and back (below) of the Pancake Day Certificate. Different versions of this novelty note

were printed from at least 1955 and until as late as 1968 (Image source: author's collection).

     For Olney and Liberal, the International Pancake Race takes the form of two, separate 415 yard courses over which the respective teams of each town’s womenfolk run, with frying pan containing pancake in hand. Racers must flip their pancakes at least twice en route to demonstrate that they have not dropped them. The required uniform includes a skirt, apron, and headscarf. Both begin at 11:55 am, although because of the transatlantic time difference, Olney’s contest takes place several hours before Liberal’s; victory goes to that racer on either side of the Atlantic with the fastest time. The winner of each race receives a “kiss of peace” from that person designated as the verger, or bell ringer, of the church (in past races at Liberal, this gesture has been bestowed by a representative from the British consulate).

     The modern version of this tradition dates to 1948, when the Vicar of Olney, the Rev. Ronald Collins, revived the race, whose practice had lapsed in recent years. Meanwhile, Liberal had begun its own, separate pancake contest in 1949. The following year the head of Liberal’s Junior Chamber of Commerce, R. J. Leete, reached out to Rev. Collins with a challenge to hold parallel races, which henceforth became an annual event held, almost without interruption, for the next seventy-five years.

     On the American side at least, what began as a whimsical gesture of international goodwill was quickly engineered by town boosters into a tourist experience, with Liberal, Kansas proclaiming itself, perhaps with some exaggeration, as the “Pancake Hub of the Universe” (Centerville, Iowa, which hosts its own flapjack festival, is content to be known as "Pancake Capital of the World"). An array of other activities surround the Liberal pancake race, including a parade and (up until the 1970s) a beauty pageant contest to choose the comeliest “Miss Flipper.” Pancake aficionados who make the pilgrimage to the race may also indulge a quick visit to the shrine that is the International Pancake Day Hall of Fame.

     Although they are not mentioned in the event’s souvenir programs of the time, the Pancake Day Certificates seem to have been an official emission of the Liberal, Kansas Jaycees. According to a brief account in Linn’s Stamp News, the note was produced as an advertising novelty by Robert and Helen Baughman, a husband-and-wife pair of stamp dealers who had a business in Liberal (Robert was once President of the Society of Philatetic Americans). The Baughmans put out different versions of these notes over the years, with the earliest dating from 1955. A newspaper account of that year’s race winner, Mrs. Binnie Dick, mentioned that she attempted to deliver to President Dwight Eisenhower (a fellow Kansan) in Washington, D. C. a “short snorter” fifteen feet long consisting of pancake certificates taped together and bearing the signatures of one thousand of Liberal’s citizens. Over the years, not all versions of these notes bore dates, but the latest ones seems to have been put out in 1968. Robert Baughman himself died in 1970.

     Like other novelty funny money of the 1950s-60s that incorporated topical or humorous themes, these examples were large, measuring 5 inches by 12 inches. The Pancake Day Certificate illustrated here, dated March 5, 1957, has a blank space in the center of the note’s front which allowed customers to order customized notes printed with their own advertising. For example, the Baughmans’ own version of the note featured a portrait of the couple, affixed as a perforated stamp. The content and arrangement of the note’s reverse also varied over the years but generally consisted of a description of the pancake race and its origins.

     The name “H. Etrick” appearing at the bottom right of the front of the note may have been the designer or printer of the note. Available sources offer no clue as to who this individual was.

Parallel Pancake Races: Contests in Olney (left) and Liberal (right) from the 1950s (Image sources: olneypancakerace.org; pancakeday.net).

     In the 2025 liturgical calendar, Shrove Tuesday fell on March 4. Despite some disruption that day caused by high winds in southern Kansas, the 76th Annual International Pancake Day Race was staged successfully, with the winning time earned by Liberal's Pamela Bolivar, who prevailed the previous year as well. After three quarters of a century, the cumulative result stands at 42 wins for Liberal and 31 for Olney.

*****

REFERENCES

“Finding Stamps in Unexpected Places” Linn’s Stamp News, August 29, 2022

https://www.linns.com/news/us-stamps-postal-history/finding-stamps-in-unexpected-places

Garden City (Kansas) Telegram, May 19, 1955

“Liberal International Pancake Day Race Ends with Fall, but Beats England” KSN News, March 4, 2025.

https://www.ksn.com/news/state-regional/liberal-international-pancake-day-race-ends-with-fall-but-beats-england/

Liberal, Kansas, Pancake Day website:

https://pancakeday.net/

Olney, England, Pancake Day website:

http://olneypancakerace.org/

The Wichita (Kansas) Beacon, February 7, 1950.