RACINE - Believe it or not!

The Racine woman who won multiple Franksville sauerkraut eating contests while pregnant, Brenda Lashley, and her son, Edward Allen Frank Lashley, have marked their place in history. They are in "Ripley's Believe It or Not!"

On the same page as stories about a "fireproof man" whose face does not feel pain or blister from flames and a billionaire who bought a town in Bulgaria and plans to rename it, there is Lashley and her son.

"Brenda Lashley of Kenosha, Wisconsin, named her newborn baby Edward Allen Frank after her favorite brand of sauerkraut!" it says in the 2007 Ripley's book.

Edward was born in Kenosha, but they lived in Racine at the time, she said. It was probably because of where he was born that the book wrote she was from Kenosha, she said.

The book has been out since 2007, but she had no idea she was in it until last Wednesday, when she stopped at her children's school to drop off library books and someone there stopped her and asked her if she had a minute to see a book.

"I was like, what would I be doing in a 'Ripley's Believe It or Not!' book," Lashley said. "You got to be kidding."

She has no idea how the book company found out about her son, who was born six years ago. "I couldn't believe it," Lashley said.

The ironic thing is that she and her husband did not originally intend to name their son after the sauerkraut. They named him Edward after Lashley's father and Allen after Edward's own father. That left them with Edward Allen Lashley and they figured why not add Frank to make it Edward Allen Frank, after the sauerkraut brand.

"It just kind of happened," Lashley said.

As soon as she found out about the book she called her husband, Allen Lashley, to tell him something happened and she had to tell him in person. He thought maybe she won the Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes, but he was ready for anything, he said.

She quickly drove to Kenosha, where Allen Lashley was strapped to a tree, trimming trees for a power company.

She looked up into the tree and started shouting that she was in "Ripley's Believe It or Not!," he said.

"Oh boy, here we go again," he said he thought when he found out.

After Brenda Lashley won the 2002 World Championship Sauerkraut Eating Contest in Franksville while pregnant, she received dozens of calls from newspapers and radio stations around the world. The calls came from the British Broadcasting Corp. in London and a Canadian radio station, among many others.

All of that happened while she was seven months pregnant with Edward.

"You are a famous little guy. You're the kraut baby," Brenda Lashley told her six-year-old while she sat outside with him this weekend.

Franksville no longer hosts an annual sauerkraut eating contest. But another contest could be in the near future on Coolidge Avenue, where the Lashley family lives. Brenda Lashley is working with neighbors to host a sauerkraut eating contest next year for the annual Coolidge Avenue Block Party.

Edward knows he cannot beat his mom right now in a sauerkraut eating contest, but he is confident about the future. "When you are old," Edward said, "I can beat you because you will be slow."