Whistlers pucker up and blow into Carolina town

“There’s going to be some jokes,” the lawyer and professional poker player from Bronx, NY, said after signing up. “Maybe even a magic trick. And a trivia game. A whistling trivia game.” It’s all fair game as the little college town of Louisburg, NC, welcomes whistlers for the 39th annual parade of puckerers. This year, more than five dozen contestants are coming from 20 states and nine countries as far away as Japan and Australia. “It was there before we had language,” convention founder Allen DeHart, 85, said of the musical art form, the skill of which he does not possess. The convention grew out of a folk festival at Louisburg College, organized by retired history and psychology professor Allen DeHart.