Every Fourth of July, while most of the country is lighting fireworks, a different kind of contest quietly plays out on the rocky shore of Mackinac Island. No engines, no gunpowder — just a stone, a low sidearm throw, and a stretch of glassy water at Windermere Point. It’s the W.T. Rabe Stone Skipping Competition, and it has been the centerpiece of Mackinac’s Independence Day for more than half a century.

How It Started
The tournament traces back to 1969, when Bill Rabe — Mackinac Island’s tireless promoter and founder of the Mackinac Island Stone Skipping and Gerplunking Club — organized the first Fourth of July contest. Rabe served as tournament director for 23 years, and beyond the beach itself, he spread the gospel of the sport by publishing The Boulder, a self-described “journal of stone skipping,” and running the club’s tongue-in-cheek Winter Rules Committee.

The competition itself was inspired by an even earlier legend: Commander Tellefson, later dubbed “the grand old man of stone skipping,” who reportedly threw a 17-skip stone at Point aux Pins back in 1932 — a mark that stood unmatched for a quarter-century and helped convince Rabe the sport deserved a proper stage. Tellefson’s opening line at the tournament, “Let he who is without Frisbee cast the first stone,” became something of an unofficial motto for the event.

What Makes It Special
A few things set the W.T. Rabe competition apart from a casual afternoon of skipping stones on the lake:

The setting. Windermere Point sits on the sheltered, leeward side of Mackinac Island, where the water is often calm enough to look like poured glass — exactly the condition serious skippers chase. Ferries glide past Round Island Lighthouse in the background as the competition unfolds.

No cars, no motors, no distractions. Mackinac Island famously bans motor vehicles, so the whole event unfolds against a soundtrack of horse-drawn carriages and lake water rather than traffic.

A contest for everyone. The tournament runs multiple divisions — an open division for anyone 13 and older, a professional division for the top competitors, and a “gerplunking” contest for younger kids, where the goal is simply the biggest, most satisfying splash rather than the most skips.

A format that rewards a single great throw. Each competitor typically skips six stones, with judges tallying the number of skips on every toss; the winner is whoever recorded the most skips on any single throw, not a cumulative total. That format means a nervous start doesn’t eliminate you — everything can change on the last stone.

A genuinely international field. Recent tournaments have drawn competitors from more than a dozen states and, in at least one memorable year, a skipper from Bulgaria — with fields well over 100 entrants across all divisions.

A Sport with Its Own Hall of Fame
The sport takes itself seriously enough to have its own Stone Skipping Hall of Fame, with Bill Rabe and Commander Tellefson as its inaugural inductees. Later honorees include Russ “Rock Bottom” Byars of Franklin, Pennsylvania, whose 51-skip throw in 2007 drew national media attention before his induction — and posthumous Hall of Fame ceremony on the banks of the Allegheny River — following his death in 2017.

Notable Winners and Moments
John “The Sheriff” Kolar — Competing at just 19, on a foggy Fourth of July in 1977, Kolar threw a stone that skipped 24 times before vanishing into the fog. With three judges watching to be sure, in his words, the throw was scored “24 plus infinity” — making him, by his own account, the only skipper to send a stone into infinity in tournament play.

Kurt “Mountain Man” Steiner — A regular competitor on Mackinac Island and the current world-record holder for stone skipping overall, with an astonishing 88 skips on open water. Steiner won the Mackinac Island title in 2021 with 23 skips.

Russ “Rockbottom” Byars — Hall of Famer known for his 2007 51-skip throw and his self-appointed motto, “Skips stones for fudge.”

Jon “The Green Giant” Jennings — A rookie competitor from Louisville, Kentucky, who swept both the open and professional divisions in 2023, beating Jeff McNutty in a skip-off, 22 skips to 21, after the pair tied at 21 apiece.
Dana “Launching Panda” Olson — Took the 2025 title with what one recap called “a wrist flick so fast it defies physics.”

Julie “From the Rock” Benda — Another name etched into the tournament’s list of past champions, part of a run of colorfully nicknamed competitors that has become a tradition of its own.

The Culture Around It
Part of the charm of the W.T. Rabe competition is how unserious it lets itself be while still crowning a legitimate champion. Competitors adopt nicknames as a matter of course — Green Giant, Rockbottom, Launching Panda — and prizes have historically included fudge, a nod to Mackinac Island’s famous confectionery shops, alongside the trophy itself. Past champions describe spending the rest of the year sorting through stones on their home lakes, testing weight and edge and roundness, all in preparation for one throw on one beach every July.

For a sport with no equipment budget, no league, and no salary, it has produced a surprisingly durable culture — one built on a lighthouse view, a calm cove, and the simple, universal urge to see how many times a flat stone can dance across the water before it finally gives in and sinks.

2026 W.T. Rabe Stone Skipping Competition
Talk about a nail-biter! This year’s Mackinac Island Stone Skipping Championship came down to the wire, with Kyle “Rock Skipping Pro” Graff and Jon “The Green Giant” Jennings deadlocked at 22 apiece after their second-best skips matched perfectly. That forced a sudden-death, one-skip showdown — and when it mattered most, Kyle sent the winning stone gliding across the water to seal the title and walk away with the hardware.

What makes Kyle’s win even sweeter is how he got there. He didn’t start the day in the Pro Division — he earned his spot by winning a skip-off in the Amateur Division first, then rode that momentum all the way to a championship. Not bad for a guy who traveled all the way from California just to compete.

And Kyle wasn’t the only one making the trip. This year’s Pro Division brought together eight of the country’s best stone skippers, hailing from Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio, Kentucky, and California — proof once again that when it comes to the sport of rock skipping, all roads lead to Mackinac Island.