THE GREAT PUMPKIN CONTEST

The Great Pumpkin Contest is held every year around Halloween. A giant pumpkin is brought into the mall and visitors take a chance guessing the weight to win a prize.
  
Darlene Bourdeau Makes Perfect Guess In First Annual Great Pumpkin Contest

Darlene Bourdeau, a 13-year old Grade 8 student from Pinecrest Public School was the only one among thousands of entrants to correctly come up with the correct weight of 368 pounds in the First Annual Hanmer Valley Shopping Centre’s Great Pumpkin Contest held in October and November 2005.. Darlene says she didn’t think much about the guess, simply putting down the first three numbers that came into her head. Darlene appeared in the photo with Val Mazzuca, owner of the HVSC and Anthony Van Alphen, the man who grew the giant pumpkin for the contest. Anthony, who is a retired INCO worker, has been growing one pumpkin each year for about 15 years now. He plants carefully selected seeds and then pollinates one pumpkin in late July or early August. By trimming away all of the rest of the pumpkins, the plant is allowed to focus all of the nourishment into one pumpkin…and presto – you have a giant pumpkin. This is the largest Anthony has ever grown. The previous record was 332 pounds. Next year he is going to try to have the pumpkin pollinated in July to see if he can hit 400 or more pounds. Make sure you look for it in the mall next October. For Darlene, it was quite a month. She just received a $600 scholarship from a Toronto-based modeling company and now wins the $50 top prize in the Great Pumpkin Contest. The Hanmer Valley Shopping Centre thanks all shoppers who took part in the contest.
 
 

Copyright © 2010 All Rights Reserved
Valley East Today is published by
Infocom Canada Business Consultants Inc.