NC’s sexiest collard champ has been crowned. Meet this year’s leafy vegetable king
Maybe it’s the alluring eyes, the tidy beard or the smudge of honest dirt on the brim of his ball cap, but whichever charm caught voters’ eye, it won Patrick Brown this year’s Sexiest Collard Farmer crown.
Brown, of Brown Family Farms in Henderson, snagged the top score with more than 3,500 votes, nearly doubling the total of his nearest leafy competitor.
“Another win for the home team,” Brown posted on Facebook. “We get it out of the mud, literally.”
The second-annual search for sex appeal among loose-leafed crops is the brainchild of The State You’re In, whose anonymous creators operate as a “faceless influencer” aimed at promoting all things Old North State.
And while last year’s champ Lee Barry of Ellerbe stood naked behind a huge green collard bunch, Brown won on sincerity alone, holding a single leaf aside his handsome mug.
Not that this year’s crop of competitors spared judges some skin.
▪ Robinson Farms in Whiteville submitted an entry featuring its proprietor bare-chested in a lounge chair, buried in collards and puffing a cigar;
▪ Correll Farms in Cleveland presented a collard farmer apparently nude in a bathtub beneath a pile of healthy leaves, sipping a glass of champagne;
And in a year that saw several hopeful collard queens, The Field in Rimerton entered its hopeful sprawled out on the dirt like a swimsuit model in flannel — one arm lovingly wrapped around a collard.
Clearly the potential for steamy vegetable creativity has scarcely been tapped.
“Feeling hot under the collard was right there,” wrote Anna Mar on the contest page, “and they missed it.”
This story was originally published December 2, 2024 at 11:40 AM with the headline "NC’s sexiest collard champ has been crowned. Meet this year’s leafy vegetable king."