The AAUGH Blog talks to Peanut of the Year, 1956!

I give up too quickly. A couple weeks after I wrote to the address that I found for 1956’s Peanut of the Year Ruth Figi, I reckoned the note had not reached her. The internet has a lot of out of date addresses for people who have since moved or died. Or perhaps she had just chosen to ignore the answer. So, I published my blog post about the Peanuts of the Year contest. Ruth Figi (center) and friend at an arts event, 2023. Courtesy Ruth Figi, all rights reserved, not for reuse. It turns out that she was just being cautious, making sure that this stranger who was reaching out to her was not some kind of dangerous weirdo. Having received assurances that I am a totally non-dangerous weirdo, she gave me a call, two days after the article was published. Ruth had quite a year in 1956. Early in the year, she had ignored her parents admonition not to go night skiing. After all, her parents were busy working at the Hyland Hills Ski Area’s coffee shop, what else was she to do? On the slope, she…