Only a few weeks remain to fabricate a fib for the World Champion Lie contest held by the Burlington Liars’ Club and club president Joel Weis is putting out an urgent plea for prevaricators.

“We have less than 50 lies,” Weis said, who speculates people are taking life too seriously. “It’s down quite a bit.”

The deadline to enter the annual contest, in its 80th year, is Tuesday, Dec. 15. There is no age limit in the international contest, which typically draws about 300 entries.

“Lie early and lie often,” Weis recommends, adding someone once submitted 50 lies in one year.

Last year’s winning whopper was submitted by Gareth Seehawer, of Oconto Falls, WI, who said his “grandson is the most persuasive liar” he has ever met. Seehawer said “by the time (the boy) was 2 years old he could dirty his diaper and make his mother believe someone else had done it.”

Other winning lies from the last decade quip about taxes, weather, school grades, farming and family life, including one from Sandi Weld, of Sorrento, Fla., who said she brought her pet sheep with her when she moved to Iron Mountain, Mich.

“It grazed on the mineral rich grass,” she wrote. “When it came time to shear it in the spring, I ended up with nine pounds of steel wool.”

All of the winning lies can be found on the club’s Web site, which also allows visitors to submit lies electronically.

There is no entry fee, but for $1, entrants become a lifetime member of the club. There are about 110,000 members based on the number of membership cards sent out. However, membership records only date back to 1980.

The club got its start in 1929 when Burlington journalist Otis Hulett and Manuel Hahn fabricated a news story about a lying contest between the Burlington police and fire departments in which the winner was the police chief, who denied ever telling a lie.

Hulett closed the club in 1979, and the Burlington Area Chamber of Commerce revived it the next year. The chamber offers a book of lies. Visitors to Burlington can also pick up a map at the chamber office, 113 E. Chestnut St., and walk the Tall Tale Trail to various businesses where winning lies are displayed on bronze plaques.