The 58th annual Harmony Labor Day Free (yes, free) Fair will include a bizarre lineup including the usual pickup and tractor pull, demolition derby, foul-shooting contest and frog-jumping contest (bring your own frog). Plus a women’s skillet-throwing contest.

Skillet throwing contest?

“Well, it’s better than throwing them at their husbands’ heads,” said the fair’s poet laureate, Dawn Potter.

The fair will be held Labor Day Weekend at the fairgrounds in town, which is south of Abbot, north of Palmyra, east of Bingham and west of Corinna, if that helps.

About 8,000 people are expected at a fair that grows in popularity each year, according to Jeff Chadbourne, president of the Patriarch’s Club, which sponsors the event.

The club was formed in 1947 to borrow money to build a new high school gym. Once the gym was complete, the organization decided to establish a town fair, Chadbourne said.

“Knock on wood, but it makes money every year. We have a $1,000 scholarship and we put on a free Cabin Fever Reliever show last winter. We also bought T-shirts for the 50th anniversary of the Fire Department,” he said.

(More about that “Patriarch” business later.)

Chadbourne’s favorite part is not the hammer or skillet throw or even the frog-jumping contest. “It is the week before, when all the volunteers come together at the fairgrounds. There is such a sense of community. Once the fair starts, I am running around putting out fires and don’t get to enjoy it that much,” he said.

“We are the only fair in the state which does not charge at the gate,” Chadbourne said. “We are one of the poorest towns in the state in one of the poorest counties. At other fairs you will spend $100 if you bring the kids. Here you can spend $20, do the rides, watch the free entertainment and have a good family time.”

You can also watch the popular skillet contest at 3 p.m. Monday, created about seven years ago by volunteer Grace Lommel. Lommel is a bookkeeper when she is not parading around the grounds in her trademark hardhat.

“I need it,” she said. “You never know where those skillets are going. One woman ended up throwing it behind her.”

Lommel is the George Steinbrenner of skillet toss. Whatever she says, goes.

“I saw a skillet toss in Parkman and I thought it was the silliest thing I ever saw,” Lommel said. “I knew we had to do it in Harmony.”

Although some argue for “regulation skillets,” Lommel picks up what she can at area yard sales, the cheaper the better, the heavier, the better: “I refuse to have regulation skillets. Someone wanted to charge for the competition. I said we should be paying them. I say the only thing it costs is your pride.”

The competition is for distance plus accuracy. Lommel stretches a 100-foot tape measure across the arena. The toss is given 100 percent measurement for landing on the tape, but is penalized for the distance from the tape. Last year, there were probably 45 competitors in eight age groups.

So far, no man has entered the skillet throw, sticking to the hammer throw at 4 p.m., which follows the skillet competition.

“There are many different skillet-throwing styles,” Lommel said. “But we have found that the underhand toss is best. It’s hard to believe but it keeps 100 people busy for two hours. I think it is the essence of the fair, a friendly, silly thing. It’s just too funny not to join in.”

No one will win a trip to Spain, or even Corinna, from the skillet toss. “I spray paint the Teflon skillet with gold paint and write the winner name on it with magic marker, suitable for hanging,” she said.

Not every fair has its own poet.

But Potter has captured the skillet toss in her book “Boy Land” (Deerbrook Editions, $12):

A loose laughing huddle of women;

gathers alongside a swath of packed dirt.

Hot children milling underfoot clutching half-empty cans of soda;

And now husbands drift over and we arrive who don’t throw skillets.

Ask the contestants what they are aiming at this year,

they’ll all say their husbands.

Men are proud to have a wife who can fracture skulls, if she thinks it’s worth her while.

Potter has been published in Beloit Poetry Journal, The Sun, Animus and Cafe Review.

Women in Harmony have no complaint working with the Patriarch’s Club, Potter said since most of the members are women. “I always thought it was funny that most of the Patriarchs are matriarchs,” she said.

The fair opens Friday at 3 p.m. with free music at 7 p.m. Saturday’s events run from the 9 a.m. home run derby to the noon demolition derby to the 4 p.m. pie auction and the 8 p.m. dance on the festival grounds. Sunday opens with the pickup and tractor pulls at 9 a.m. and continues with a horseshoe tournament and oxen pulling at 2:30 p.m. and the frog-jumping contestant at 4:45 p.m. Music and fireworks from 6 to 8 p.m. On Monday, the activities open with the 9:30 a.m. parade followed by the 3 p.m. skillet toss and the 4 p.m. hammer throw. The weekend event will close at 7 p.m. No admission charge. Harmony is located at the intersection of Route 150 and Route 154.

Skillet Toss

Where: Harmony Labor Day Free Fair

When: Sept. 2-5

Times: Opens at 3 p.m. Friday, 9 a.m. Saturday and Sunday, 9:30 a.m. Monday