BURLINGTON - Garth Seehawer of Oconto Falls is a champion liar, seriously.

No, we mean it. Seehawer was chosen from among several really good liars as the winner of lying's ultimate prize - the Burlington Liars' Club Champion Lie.

Seehawer told a whopper to win the 2008 prize.

"My grandson is the most persuasive liar I have ever met. By the time he was two years old he could dirty his diaper and make his mother believe someone else had done it."

There is an art to crafting a really good lie, the kind of champion lie that gets noticed by the Burlington Liars' Club.

"You work at it. Your mind is always playing around. When it hits you come up with an interesting story," Seehawer said. "You see double meanings. You get off-beat connections."

In his 71 years, the Green Bay native said he's had a little practice. With practice comes improvement. Seehawer has submitted lies and he's even been among the club's top five a couple of times before.

This time he stepped to the front of the lie … line.

Before quarterback Tony Romo tossed Burlington into the national spotlight, the city's claim to fame was the Liars' Club, a small group of two that meets annually to pick the best lie.

This is the first contest since longtime Liars' Club president John Soeth died in March.

Joel Weis, 40, of Burlington, took over as the club's leader.

The club, along with its annual contest, has become such a tradition in Burlington that Weis said it was important to continue.

Each year the club solicits lies from around the country. The club received just under 200 submissions for the 2008 contest. The club announced its winner a little later than usual. New Year's Eve is traditionally the day when the champion lie is announced to the world.

It's an extremely scientific process that involves a thorough reading of all the lies by Weis and the club's only other member, Ed Impens.

"I'm not really a qualified liar, but I'm a qualified judge of the lies. I'm a lie detector," Weis said.

Champion lies have a few qualities, Weis said. They have to be original. The club gets a lot of "It was so hot last summer, our chickens laid hardboiled eggs." That isn't going to cut it, Weis said. The lies have to be in good taste. They have to be funny, too. That's a crucial component of a winning lie.

"There's got to be a sense of humor. It's good today. It's just something that's lighthearted, that makes you laugh," Weis said.

Seehawer lived in Racine and Caledonia until the late 1980s. He practiced corporate and business law.

If you think you're the first person to find humor in that, Seehawer beat you to the punch. Since that's the public's perception about lawyers, he gets a kick out of feeding it.

That's part of the joy of spinning yarns.

"Every lie is a form of entertainment. A lie is just a good joke. It is something that is improbable, usually impossible," Seehawer said.

The art of crafting lies doesn't happen in a linear fashion. It's like a random computer, Seehawer said.

"I think you just see fun in things. You know how to make fun," he said. "You have to laugh at yourself and with other people. You have to be able to handle oddball thoughts."

SOME 2008 RUNNERS UP

On a recent flight from New York to LA, we were watching the in-flight movie called Cocoon. It was during a pool scene that we encountered some very violent turbulence. It was so rough that the water in the pool in the movie splashed out onto the passengers and an onboard life raft inflated!! The flight crew had to hand out towels to dry us all off!!

- Jim Kubath

When my uncle wakes up in the morning he often yawns and says, "I could stretch a mile." Of course, he never does since he's too lazy to walk back.

- Ellen Everts

It used to be in the winter when I walked into my house my glasses would fog up. But now, at the cost of fuel, I have my temperature down so low that when I go outside my glasses fog up.

- Jerry Olson

I knew I had to lose weight when both the automatic in and out doors opened when I entered the grocery store.

- Michael E. Peters