For the last 43 years, the townspeople in a small town near Cleveland have been seeing double during the annual Twins Day Festival, held each year in Twinsburg, Ohio.  What started off as a simple acknowledgement of the uniqueness of multiple births has now featured nearly 70,000 twins over the course of the festival’s history.  This year, three sets of twins from Harrison County attended, including Bridgeport’s Brenda Sendling McKinley and Linda Sendling Seckman.

 

“This was our first year attending the festival and we had such a great time meeting other twins from all around the world,” said McKinley.  “There were over 2000 sets of twins registered this year people would line up to get pictures with us, often turning a picture of two sets of twins into a dozen or more sets in the picture.”

 

McKinley and Seckman had been encouraged to attend the event by two other sets of twins who live in Clarksburg.  Haley and Heather Smith have been attending the festival for 15 years and Sherri Barlow and Terri Talkington have attended for three years.  

 

“We were repeatedly asked about how many minutes we are apart, whether we were identical or fraternal and who is ‘Twin A and Twin B,” said McKinley.  “Our cheeks were hurting from smiling so much!”

 

The Twins Day Festival is the recorded as the Largest Annual Gathering of Twins in the World, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.  Held August 3-5, the event featured look alike contests, best costume contests and a twins talent show in addition to a 5K race.  

 

“The main attraction is the Double Take Parade,” said McKinley.  “The theme this year was games and we went dressed as Monopoly.  It was the highlight of the weekend for us and the whole town showed up to watch and take pictures.”

 

Throughout the weekend, there are small amusement rides, games, twin-related merchandise booths, and researchers who interview the participants.  There is also a Royal Court and special awards given out as well as many tournaments and entertainment opportunities.

 

“There were six sets of twins from West Virginia that we met, but there may have been more,” said McKinley.  “We have already asked more sets of twins from our area to attend next year and we hope to continue to attend and recruit others to this unique celebration of twins.”