Karen Wiget & Buddy Conley

By KAREN BIGHAM
The Herald

The all-time record for largest pumpkin came within a handful of pounds of being broken when Buddy Conley's pumpkin topped the scales Wednesday at 617 pounds at the 1999 great pumpkin weigh-in at the Circleville Pumpkin Show.

Conley and growing partner Karen Wiget of South Bloomingville also had the second place pumpkin, "Grandma Anna" weighing in at 541 pounds. Defending champions Eric and Deidra Schacht of Canal Winchester dropped to a third place finish this year with their 448 pound Giant Atlantic squash.

"I'm really pleased to see all the pumpkins this year. I knew a lot of people were thinking that we weren't going to have any pumpkins for the Pumpkin Show. At first, these were so tiny they could be overlooked. But our local growers did good. I'm very pleased with the weights. Hopefully things will go even better next year," Wiget said.

"Tonya," the plant Conley won with, was one of their youngest plants. The pair got it from Wiget's son and it had been transplanted three times in the growing process, therefore withstanding a lot of stress. But, all of "Tonya's" stress paid off, she will bring in $1 a pound as the first place finisher. "Grandma Anna" brought in another $300 dollars for the pair, with it's second place finish.

Conley said he was hoping that "Tonya" would prove to be a winner for him. He believes that if a pumpkin is thicker at the stem where it feeds, then the flesh in the front will be thicker too, giving it more weight.

"The record was what I was hoping for. But, the greatest feeling is whenever you win, no matter what the weight is," Conley said.

Dr. Robert Liggett set the record in 1996 with a 628 pound specimen.

Conley said he thinks the secret was the 6,000 gallons of water he hauled to his pumpkin patch each week from Salt Creek. Also, by keeping wet towels on the pumpkins during the hot afternoon sun and warm blankets on them at night, he could keep the temperatures from fluctuating so much. Without the fluctuation, soft spots are less likely to develop.

The Schachts had been watching their largest pumpkin for more than two months.

Although questions arose at the beginning of the summer in regards to whether or not the drought would affect the pumpkins as it was affecting other crops, Eric said it wasn't a factor for him.

"With irrigation, the drought didn't really affect us, but the heat is what hurts. It all comes down to the hot weather. That's just something you can't change," Eric said.

Next year, he plans to mix things up a little bit by changing his planting locale, hoping to avoid insect problems and an onset of mosaic disease. He also said he wants to try to become more faithful with his irrigation.

"You can always be more faithful on irrigation. There's always more you can do. I'm not sure there's anything else in particular I would do differently," Eric said.

He said they'll use the $150 prize money towards their college funds.

The father and son combo of Keith and Scott Young from Chillicothe rounded out the list of top finishers. Out of the two pumpkins they entered in the contest, their 426 pounder garnered fourth place. The pair started with seeds from Conley and will take home $100 as their reward.

One guest displayer to the Pumpkin Show is Dave Dunlap from Johnstown. Although he was out of the 21-mile competition radius, he wanted to at least find out how his pumpkin compared.

"I'm originally from Canal Winchester and it's always been the Pumpkin Show to me. The pumpkin was a little too big to put on the front porch. I had to show it off a little bit," Dunlap said. "It started as a side bet with a neighbor to see who could grow the biggest one. It kinda got out of hand this year."

Conley said the nice thing about the pumpkin growers at the Pumpkin Show is the more competition there is, the harder everyone works and the bigger the pumpkins get. "We're trying to create a more aggressive competition so we can get the state record on down the road," Conley said.

Things have already been progressing for area pumpkin growers. Sixty years ago, in 1939, the largest pumpkin weighed in at a mere 62 pounds. Even as recently as 10 years ago in 1989, Latta Shaeffer's champion pumpkin weighed 280 pounds.

In total this year, 17 people brought in 30 pumpkins that went across the scales totaling 8,571 pounds. Eleven of the 30 pumpkins weighed in at more than 300 pounds. Only 26 of the pumpkins were up for competition.