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Travis Gienger nicknamed his pumpkin “Rudy” after the Notre Dame football player who inspired the film Rudi.
Safeway World Pumpkin Weigh-in Championship
A 2,471-pound gourd from Minnesota has triumphed at the annual awards ceremony Safeway World Pumpkin Weigh-in Championship.
The grower, Travis Gienger, was confronted with the moment of truth on October 14, when his orange behemoth was lifted onto the scales. Gienger’s pumpkin, also known as “Rudy,” was one of the last to be weighed.
“We are now just hoping for a top 10 finish,” he told the BBC Minnesota Star Grandstand‘s Tim Harlow at the event in Half Moon Bay, California. “There is a lot of pressure.”
Growers from across the country gathered in Half Moon Bay, California, to weigh their pumpkins. Safeway World Pumpkin Weigh-in Championship/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/58/57/58573309-ec00-437d-ae66-1897aa9d44b4/463367622_1024326172818069_3093424930495157237_n.jpg)
Although another gourd had come close – Californian Brandon Dawson’s 2,465-pound gourd – Gienger took the lead. He has now won the competition three years in a row – and four times in total. Last year, Gienger’s entry also set a world record for the heaviest pumpkin, weighing 2,749 pounds.
The first Half Moon Bay pumpkin weigh-in was held 50 years ago 1974. Per one statementHalf Moon Bay officials had challenged distant Circleville, Ohio, for the pumpkin weigh-in after both cities declared themselves the pumpkin capital of the world. The winner of the first contest was John Minaidis of Half Moon Bay, whose pumpkin weighed a measly 132 pounds.
Gienger, 44, a native of Anoka, Minnesota, is a horticulture instructor at Anoka Technical College. In addition to the world record for the heaviest pumpkin, Gienger also shares the world record for the largest jack-o’-lantern by circumference. (His creation, carved to resemble an eagle, measured 2 feet in circumference.) He has been growing pumpkins for nearly 30 years.
“My dad grew little pumpkins, like 100 pounders, and [I] I just got into gardening in general and decided, hey, this is something I want to try,” says Gienger Public Radio Minnesota‘s Cathy Wurzer and Ellen Finn. “So when I was 14, I grew a 447-pounder, and that was pretty big for the time, and [I’ve] been doing it ever since.”
Gienger’s pumpkin growing hobby has proven profitable. Last year he won $30,000 in Half Moon Bay for the world record, and he won $22,239 this year – $9 per pound of Rudy. As Gienger tells Standthe prize money will cover the “few thousand” dollars he spent on gas to transport his pumpkin from Minnesota to California.
Gieger and his family celebrated the victory on October 14. Safeway World Pumpkin Weigh-in Championship/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/32/b4/32b4bc9b-38b3-40d0-8de4-979b295e048e/463112928_1024526982797988_6725352605816507587_n.jpg)
Gienger planted Rudy, nicknamed after the football player who inspired a namesake film– in April of this year, and the pumpkin had a slow summer.
“I didn’t think I would have anything in June,” Gienger said Coastal NewsSebastian Miño-Bucheli. “If you had talked to me in June, I would have said, ‘No, our weather is way too wet, way too cold.’”
But the pumpkin pulled through and grew just enough before Gienger packed it up and headed for California. However, Half Moon Bay is not the final destination. As Gienger tells StandRudy heads to Los Angeles, where professional sculptors will turn it into a jack-o’-lantern.
