NATCHEZ — At 11 a.m. Louis Mallory was dry and waiting for her turn in the dunking booth to be over.

Unfortunately, her dunking booth replacement didn’t show up until 11:01.

Right before her turn was over, Ty Brown snuck behind the booth to send his eighth-grade religion teacher into the cool water.

“We had all hit the target three or four times, but it never fell,” Brown said. “I wasn’t fair so I just pulled it.”

Mallory was just one of the teachers to volunteer to be dunked in the dunking booth at the 162nd annual Cathedral Fall Festival on Saturday.

“I had students trying to dunk me and even some of the younger students were throwing at me,” Mallory said. “I don’t know what I did to them.

“I even had family — grandchildren, nieces, nephews — trying to dunk me too.”

Mallory teaches seventh and eighth grade religion at Cathedral and chose to man the dunking booth instead of the pie-in-the-face booth that was also being manned by teachers from the school.

“I’d rather be wet than have pie up my nose,” Mallory joked. “I’m also on a diet.”

The dunking booth and pie-in-the-face booth were both popular among festival goers, but Kelly Baroni, was camped out at the large inflatable slide where 3-year-old Parker Baroni was going up and down.

“We come out so the kids could have a good time,” Baroni said. “It’s a fun day for them.”

Baroni’s other child, Taylor, 6, didn’t find the slide as interesting as the cocker spaniel that was up for auction inside the school building.

“We came out here and Taylor went right inside to try to find the dog,” Baroni said.

The festival is a fundraiser for the school. It is the largest fundraiser the school does each year.

The two-day festival includes festival games, a cake-walk, a silent auction, raffle prizes and food.

This year a hair wrapping booth was added the the festival and it saw a steady stream of girls wanting the straight-from-the-beach look.

“It’s been all girls so far,” Tracy Henry said. “I’ve heard some girls threatening the guys, but nothing’s happened yet.”

The hair-wraps use embroidery floss to wrap stands of hair in bright colors.

Cathedral High cheerleaders, with Henry’s help, were busy doing three or four hair wraps at a time.

Festivities continue tomorrow with games from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

The traditional turkey and trimmings dinner also begins at 11 a.m. Plates can be picked up in the cafeteria or curbside delivery is available.

After the games close at 2 p.m. Sunday, bingo begins and raffle prizewinners will be announced at that time.