From WCMessenger.com

WORLD’S LARGEST WASHER? – Amanda and Carey Williams sit with the monument sign comemorating the 2014 Put Yo Money Where Yo Mouth Is washer tournament, the Guinness World Record holder for world’s largest washer tournament. A festival in Canada plans to challenge the record next weekend. Messenger photo by Joe Duty

Everything’s bigger in Texas, including the washers.

An anonymous donor recently presented Amanda and Carey Williams with a monument sign designed to look like a giant washer to commemorate the 2014 Put Yo Money Where Yo Mouth Is tournament, which was officially declared the world’s largest washer tournament by Guinness World Records.

The Williams and the Decatur Chamber of Commerce organize the tournament at the Wise County Old Settler’s Reunion every summer. In July 2014, participants from Texas to Canada formed 243 teams with a total of 486 people playing washers.

Despite several setbacks during the actual record-setting process – the computer system breaking down mid-tournament and Guinness returning the first box of information Amanda filed – the tournament has enjoyed its crown for the past couple years.

“It was such a neat deal for the community,” Carey said. “It pulled the community together.”

Ironically, just as they’re getting ready to place the monument at Reunion grounds, a Canadian festival plans to break the record.

Tide Fest, a homecoming festival in East Hants, Nova Scotia, announced in a video posted on their website that they’re planning the world’s largest washer tournament July 14-16.

“We’re going to show those [expletive] in Texas what a washer tournament toss is all about,” East Hants “legend” Terry Isenor said in the video. “Those fellas down in Texas, they think everything’s big in Texas. They got nothing.”

Carey discovered the video while trying to look up the date of the record-setting Put Yo Money Where Yo Mouth Is tournament.

“I hate the Blue Jays,” he said, referring to the Toronto baseball team, “so it kind of just adds fuel to the fire.”

His idea if the Canadians fail to beat the Wise County record? Make t-shirts spoofing the infamous punch Texas Rangers second baseman Rougned Odor threw at Blue Jay Jose Bautista, only Carey will be Odor and Isenor will be Bautista.

Amanda does not want him to do that, but Carey insists she got a little fired up, too, when he first showed her the challenge video.

“I thought Canadians were supposed to be chill,” she said.

The Williams and the Decatur Chamber will have to consider whether to try again for the record should the tournament at Tide Fest break it.

Amanda’s not so sure she wants to go through the long process of getting a world record verified again – it took the tournament a year to receive its official verification from Guinness. The tournament proceeds have always benefited the Chamber, so they’re hesitant to spend the thousands of dollars it would take to bring in a Guinness official to verify the record on site.

Carey said he would want to try and take it back.

“We did set the original record,” Amanda said. “Now I guess you get into the endless cycle of they beat you, you beat them.”

Regardless of what happens next weekend, the giant washer monument will still stand at the Reunion grounds, just to remind the world that Wise County did it first.