Stone Skipping

  
This weekend I was pleasantly surprised to come across a story on CBS that featured Franklin, Pennsylvania!
During this time of year, one may suspect that the story would cover Franklin's famous Applefest, but the story was actually about an event I had never heard of before.  Each year, Franklin hosts the Pennsylvania Qualifying Stone Skipping Tournament (also known as the Rock In River Festival) at the confluence of the French Creek and Allegheny River.  The World Champion and Guinness World Record holder for stone skipping, Russ "Rock Bottom" Byars, is a citizen of Franklin, and at this year's tournament he regained the tournament cup, besting his rival and former Guiness World Record holder Kurt "Mountain Main" Steiner.  You can visit the event's website at http://www.pastoneskipping.com/

CBS had a nice story about the event that first aired a year ago and was re-broadcast this weekend.  The story's journalist, Bill Geist, provides a fun feature about professional rock skipping and includes some picturesque shots of Franklin, describing it as "a gem of a small town set in a landscape worthy of an oil painting."  To watch the CBS story, you can try either of the following links:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5381554n
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2W3jU-oOQc