TARBORO, N.C. — A chile stringing exhibition at the New Mexico State Fair this month brought a response from the current Guinness World Record holder, James R. Johnson of Edgecombe County.

According to reports, men, women and children at the fair in Albuquerque took five hours and 45 minutes to make a 157.7-foot-long chile ristra.

Johnson, 72, spent three years stringing together 1,039 feet of chile pods, before being recognized as the Guinness World Record holder back in 2000. He began his ristra in 1997, stringing together 109 feet of chiles that first year.

Johnson said he heard about the New Mexico exhibition from one of his friends, whose daughter lives in Albuquerque and spotted a newspaper article about the event.

Three weeks before the fair's exhibition, Johnson wrote a letter giving his well-wishes to the New Mexico Chile Association and Department of Agriculture in their effort.

"I'm glad (if) they can beat it, if they can," Johnson said about the fair's ristra stringers. But, he added, there is "a long way to go" before the record's broken.

Before he took his record ristra down from his lakeside "pepper house" in 2001, Johnson had 22,137 chile pods hanging from its ceiling. It took him four years of solitary work for his ristra to reach its final length of 1,274 feet, 235 feet longer than his official world record.

He said he had to take the chiles down because when they aged and decayed, their dust would burn people's eyes. All that's left of his creation in the building is a foot-long string holding 24 brown chile pods. Johnson said he forgot to take it down with all the rest, but decided to leave it.

In lieu of the real thing, he has placed red, chile-shaped ornament lights in the pepper house's ceiling.

Asked how he kept track of the number of chiles he strung together, Johnson said he washed each one he used, so they would look nice and clean on his ristra.

He said when he was a child, his late mother, May Williams Johnson, often used chiles for her cooking. Johnson fondly remembers her keeping three strings of them hanging over the wood-burning stove, so she'd have however many she wanted, whenever she wanted them.

When asked what having the world record meant to him, Johnson said there was honor and respect in holding it. "People find out you're in (the Guinness Book of World Records), and they got more respect for ya," he said.

But the world record isn't all that attracts people to Johnson's residence. Recently, Rocky Mount's Eva Boddie came to fish at the manmade lake on Johnson's 10-acre property, off Gay Road.

His fishing spot is known as The Pepper House Lake, on the specially named Pepper Lane. Pictures of local anglers cover parts of the Pepper House wall, showing carp, catfish, bass, and other kinds that young and old alike have caught since 2000.

People are allowed to keep two fish of the same species if they're 18 inches or longer. If shorter than 18 inches, they have to be cast back into the lake.

Johnson also has 30 goats, with names like Bailey and Elvis, that everybody can pet. He also has three turkeys and several chickens to fill out his menagerie.

Johnson and his wife Peggy will celebrate their 42nd wedding anniversary in November.

He continues growing his own peppers in his garden, just like he did the other 20,000-plus in his record-breaking string. In the future, Johnson said that his nephew, East Carolina student John Robert Bulluck, wants to carry on the tradition.

When asked if he might start another chile ristra, Johnson said he might later on, "if I get in the mood."