VIDEO: It’s a return to tradition in Avoca, Nebraska, a tradition that spans four decades.
“Two local members of the community had a bar bet of who had the fastest duck, and they went down to one of the local ponds about January time,” TJ Goepfert, the Avoca fire chief, said. “It was frozen over. And they raced their ducks on the ice. And that’s where it all started.”
It’s the 41st annual “Quack Off.” The shouts of thousands of people and quacks of hundreds of ducks will overtake the village of about 180.
“It has a very great atmosphere,” Austin Nielsen, the Avoca fire captain, said. “Everybody that comes here, most of them have come year after year after year. So they made friends in the past year. So it’s almost like a gigantic family reunion with a lot of alcohol.”