I expect to receive some stories about variations on this practice from our early "church-goin" days in southern WV. STAN Pie socials were held a few times each year to raise money for our church. Since we were usually broke, my young friends and I were simply eager bystanders. We could count on being included when it came time to start cutting and eating. There never was a shortage. This was no place for a diabetic; sweets would serve as appetizers, entrées and desserts on this night. We would not have missed a pie social even if threatened with bodily harm. Besides, it was a time when we could attend church and not have to listen to a sermon. Pies and cakes were all donated by members of the church. In preparation for the big event, the women and girls spent hours toiling in their hot kitchens preparing cakes and pies for sales and awards. Each girl would bring a pie in hopes that it would be purchased at auction by the right person. They and their mothers made additional pies and cakes to be used in cakewalks and other events. The typical program at a pie social included, cake walks, pie and cake auctions, and my favorite of all, the pretty-girls cake. The cakewalk came first. Boys and girls, men and women, people of all ages paired up and joined in. Naturally, each of those who were single had a special person whom they would choose to be their partner. Each participating couple was required to ante up a certain amount of money, for which they were entitled to gamble in church without feeling guilty. They formed a circle of couples all around the inside walls of the church and at a prearranged signal all the couples began to march in lock-step around the church perimeter while Louetta pounded and pumped away at the organ. A short time later the leader of the event yelled, “Stop!” The music stopped and everyone quit marching. The couple who was standing behind a special line on the floor won the pie or cake. Along with the award came the privilege of eating it together. They repeated the same drill until all the pies and cakes designated for the cake walks were gone. The events became more expensive as the night wore on. The pies, which were normally baked by single women, were sold to the highest bidder, who was most often a single man. Theoretically, no one was supposed to know which pie went with which girl, but it never worked out that way. The girls always leaked the information to their favorite male friends so they would know in which pies they were to invest their life savings. Thus, the pie auctions pitted young men against one another in bidding wars for pies baked by particular girls. Eminent bankruptcy would not have stopped a single man from continuing to bid if he was in danger of losing out to a rival who, by tradition, would get both the pie and the girl for that evening. Later I would experience this lesson first hand. I attended a pie social at the old grade school in Sabine, West Virginia, and spent a good portion of a weeks pay to win a pie brought by Connie Bailey, the prettiest girl there. Fifty-seven plus years, one son and one daughter, two granddaughters and two great grandsons later, I can unabashedly say it was the best investment I ever made. Like the pie auctions, the pretty-girl prize was awarded to the person who was willing to spend the most. Only now it got ruthless as fathers joined in the fray to have their daughters recognized as the prettiest girl in the church. Each girl who participated in the contest entered a cake, and votes, which cost a penny or more apiece, were cast for the different cakes dependent upon which one each voter thought was the best. Votes could be entered any time throughout the evening. It was the same as the auctions except now it placed the girls in direct competion with one another. In actuality, people voted for the girls, not her cake, and the contest carried the connotation that the winner was the prettiest girl. There were many variations on this theme, such as paying to vote for a school queen. One year, Mr. Easter spent a pocket full of money to have his daughter, Mildred, named Oceana High School Queen. Pie socials have lost favor in most modern churches. They have more sophisticated ways of getting our money.