Linda Skeens - Author Appearance

County Fair Queen and viral sensation Linda Skeens will be at the Bristol Public Library on Thursday, October 5 at 4:00 pm. She will be joined by former editor for Better Homes & Gardens and Founder of Eat with Nancy Productions, Nancy Hopkins for an interview style panel. Linda's cookbook, Blue Ribbon Kitchen will be available for purchase at the event.

“WHO IS LINDA SKEENS?” 

That was the question on everyone’s mind in the summer of 2022 when Linda Skeens swept the awards at the Virginia-Kentucky District Fair. She had won Best Cake, Best Pie, Best Brownies, Best Jelly, Best Jam, Best Applesauce, Best Apple Butter, Best Pumpkin Butter, Best Sauerkraut, and Best Spaghetti Sauce. If that wasn’t enough, her strawberry fudge won Best Overall Baked Good. She also placed first, second, AND third in three baking categories: Best Cookies, Best Bread, and Best Candy. And for good measure, she swept all three embroidery categories. Overnight she became a legend, with Jordan Keyes creating “The Ballad of Linda Skeens” and people like Josh Clark commenting, “Chuck Norris beats everyone except Linda Skeens.” People wanted to know who this woman was! But Skeens, who wasn’t on social media, didn’t have a cell phone, let alone a computer, was difficult to find. Until Mason Moussette, a popular radio host in Dallas, doggedly tracked her down and asked to interview her. After that, interview media requests poured in. The world soon learned that Skeens was a 74-year-old from Russell County, Virginia who had been entering country fairs for 4 decades. She’s a coal miner’s daughter, married to a coal miner, and worked as a cook at a school up the road. She’s a woman of quiet strength who was diagnosed with leukemia in 2021 but says she’s “learned to take every day as a gift that wasn’t promised, and I try to celebrate every happiness that has been sent my way.”