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Iron Head sharpens crow Mail Tribune/Jim Craven Iron Head used to be afraid to crow with people around watching him. But, thanks to some serious desensitizing by owner Harold Fitzsimmons, Iron Head is ready for competition at the annual Rooster Crow in Rogue River on Saturday. He�s been in sensitivity training for annual Rooster Crow contest By Mark Freeman Heading home from last year�s failed attempt at winning the Rogue River Rooster Crow, Harold Fitzsimmons considered the same fate for Iron Head as his two other failed roosters � an unceremonial dumping at a friend�s ranch to fend for themselves . But the 72-year-old Fitzsimmons saw a special cockiness, so to speak, in Iron Head. So he decided to give the bird a reprieve from becoming a side dish in a coyote buffet. Fitzsimmons has spent the past year teaching his rooster to overcome the shyness that led to his beak-locking silence in competition. Now old Iron Head is a rooster who is no longer chicken. "He�s gotten to the point where he sees me, he crows," Fitzsimmons boasts. "I have a nice rooster." Come Saturday, Fitzsimmons and the rest of the world may learn if old Iron Head has the mettle to cockadoodle-do to what his predecessors could not: win the Rogue River Rooster Crow contest. Fitzsimmons will try to coax more crows out of Iron Head in 30 minutes than the other contestants in the 47th annual crowing contest and festival in Rogue River. The winner receives $150 and the chance to be the star of a quirky feature du jour on CNN, network news and even the New York Times. All have previously run stories about past Rooster Crow events. The crowing begins at 2:30 p.m. at the Rogue River Elementary School. Registration is 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. Normally, this is not an intense competition. "Most people catch a rooster or buy one, let it bug their neighbors for a few weeks then come to the Rooster Crow," says Dave Ehrhardt, the crow�s master of ceremonies. "In 47 years, no one has come up with a method to get these things crowing consistently," Ehrhardt says. Fitzsimmons� first two rooster contestants, named Rojos and Fat Albert, didn�t make it home from their poor showing at previous crowings. And Iron Head, a Bard Rock rooster bought from the Grange Co-op, fared little better last year. Because Iron Head was too shy and scared of the other roosters, Fitzsimmons had to keep him covered and he mustered just a couple crows during his 30 minutes of would-be fame. "He was so scared," Fitzsimmons says, "that he hit all four sides of the cage." So the past year has been spent desensitizing Iron Head. First, he�s logged many hours among the rest of the chickens in Fitzsimmons� coop; second, he had the neighborhood kids come by regularly to view the caged crower, even feed him fistfuls of grass. Over time, Iron Head has eaten his grain and started to feel his oats. Now, he�s a bona fide crower. The trick is, Fitzsimmons says, is keep a cloth over Iron Head�s cage during the beginning of the crow-off, then remove the cloth to log some serious beak-blasts. "That�s all helped turn him into a pretty decent old chicken," Fitzsimmons says. Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA