Pafford EMTs and RSAT program members unload Hope watermelons from a truck to a Tyson-provided refrigerated trailer.

Around Saturday lunchtime, after scrimmaging in the Fayetteville sun, the Arkansas Razorbacks will be served a taste of Hope.

For 22 years in a row, citizens of Hope have been sending a shipment of homegrown watermelons to the Hogs. This year is no different and the same man is in charge of bringing this year’s shipment, nicely chilled, up to the Hill, Dave Johnson.

Just after lunchtime Friday in a North Hervey shopping center parking lot, a crew of Pafford EMTs with Hempstead County Sheriff’s Deputies and members of Hempstead County’s Residential Substance Abuse Treatment (RSAT) program fulfilling community service requirements helped unload dozens of melons from a pickup truck to the waiting trailer.

Johnson, who will be driving the melons up to Fayetteville, first gave credit to Pafford and the Sheriff’s Office for their help as well as Tyson Foods who, Johnson said, “has been a blessing to the Razorback family.” Tyson is providing the refrigerated trailer.

In Fayetteville, Johnson said, a crew is waiting from the Razorback Foundation and the football operations office to help serve the melons tomorrow. Johnson added that he’d been told the necessary tables and supply of salt were already provided for the 100 or so watermelons.

Johnson said he will arrive in Fayetteville around 9:00 a.m. tomorrow. The Razorbacks’ scrimmage will start at 10:45 and will be over by 12:45 p.m. That’s when the fruit that has made Hope’s name is served. “And what I do is make sure that they’re down on 47 [degrees], and that’s good enough that they’re really cold,” Johnson said.

The watermelon banquet is an annual event the players look forward to and remember long after. When Johnson goes to games afterward, the players who see him ask him if he’s brought any more watermelon.