It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

[jazz lady (Premo)]

Giant pumpkin sets Ohio record

http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2003/US/Midwest...pumpkin.ap.jpg

Winston Wyckoff III proudly uncovers his 1,279 pound pumpkin.


BARNESVILLE, Ohio -- Winston Wyckoff III has indeed seen the Great Pumpkin. He even watched it grow up.

The Wayne County farmer has officially raised Ohio's biggest pumpkin, a feat made official Wednesday night when announcer Darren Miller prepared the Barnesville Pumpkin Festival crowd for what he had just read on the scale.

"Oh, boy," he said. "We do have a new state record -- 1,279 pounds."

The pumpkin, grown on land Wyckoff's family has farmed for nearly two centuries, officially weighed 1,279.5 pounds, beating the previous state record by 139 pounds.

And it was just 58 pounds short of the biggest pumpkin on record -- a 1,337-pounder grown in New Hampshire last year.

Barnesville police officer Scott Guerin described it as being "kind of flat, but it looks like a pumpkin."

The festival, which continues until Sunday, will auction the enormous vegetable on Saturday. The winning bidder gets to put the pumpkin on display at his or her business or home for 10 days.

Then the pumpkin will be gutted and its seeds taken out and dried. The festival keeps half of the 600 to 800 seeds, which it will sell for about $1 each, and gives Wyckoff the other half.

Wyckoff's record-breaking pumpkin began in May as a seed from his 2001 Barnesville winner, an 844-pounder he calls the "mother seed."