It's called “stringing” or “looping,” depending on what part of North Carolina you're from. Twelve-year-old Sophie Sunday just calls it fun. She was the youngest competitor in the annual tobacco stringing contest at the State Fair in Raleigh last week, part of a three-generation crew trying to keep the traditions of the state's historic cash crop alive. Teams tied bundles of tobacco leaves on wooden sticks to be hung in a wood-fired curing barn. Sandy Jones taught her daughter and then Sophie how to “loop” tobacco, as she calls it. They didn't take home first prize, but there's always next year.