By Emily Mosier
The city of Kyle, Texas, recently had around 1,800 people named Kyle attend its ‘Kyle Fair.’ The Kyles came from around the world and included one of Troy University’s own instructors – Kyle Gassiott.
Gassiott, who is the operations manager of Troy Public Radio, had the opportunity to cover the fair in late May for National Public Radio (NPR). The fair was an attempt to break a Guinness world record of having the most people with the same first name in the same place.
“I’ve never been in a group of people that large that have my name,” Gassiott said. “Usually there’s one or two Kyles around, but this was the first time I’d been someplace where people were screaming ‘Kyle, Kyle.’
“Your head was spinning around the entire time.”
While this is the first annual Kyle Fair’s, it was the fourth attempt by the City of Kyle to break the record set in 2017 when 2,325 Ivans gathered in Kupreski Kosci in Bosnia and Herzegovina, according to The Guinness World Record’s website.
Although they were about 850 Kyles short of breaking the record, Gassiott says Kyles recover quickly. Some of them took their disappointment out by recreating the internet meme where Kyles punch drywall and drink energy drinks.
“I’ve never done either of those things in my life before, but when you get there, to Kyle Fair, there was a booth set up where people could pay five dollars and pound drywall,” Gassiott said. “Whenever the goal didn’t get met, some guys just said ‘well, I’m gonna go pound some drywall’.”
Gassiott said the fair brought people together, as there were Kyles of all ages and genders – even the musicians playing at the event were named Kyle. He said he was glad to have the chance to cover it.
“This reminded me of a lot of stories that I’ve done, that I think are specific to public radio, where it’s just kind of a quirky fun story that you go out and you bring people a slice of life.”
