When it comes to finding Bigfoot, the mysterious creature will always have the upper hand. “They are the boss of the woods. They can outsmart any of us when we’re around them,” said Marc DeWerth, the organizer of the Ohio Bigfoot Conference held each year at Salt Fork State Park. This year’s event will be held on Saturday, May 14, with a Bigfoot Festival taking place on Sunday, May 15. The conference, started in 1989 by Don Keating and held in Newcomerstown until 2004, moved to Salt Fork in 2005. The event has grown into the premier Bigfoot conference in the world and draws thousands of people from around the United States and beyond each year.
DeWerth became interested in Bigfoot in the late 1970s when he and his grandfather were watching an episode of the “In Search Of” television show about Bigfoot. “I asked my grandfather if he thought they were real and he said he thought they were,” said DeWerth who later went to the library to check out the book, “Sasquatch, Apes Among Us” by John Green. “There was a map in the book that showed Ohio had 17 sightings. From that day I was hooked.”
It was his wife’s family reunion in 1989 in Tippecanoe that started DeWerth collecting Bigfoot stories as he began talking with people about the creatures and heard many stories from eyewitnesses. Since then, DeWerth has made public presentations,
