Giant pumpkins take center stage
A little more desolate, but Circleville won’t let the coronavirus get in the way
CIRCLEVILLE — He had walked around the Pickaway County Fairgrounds since dawn, inspecting everyone else's giant pumpkins and telling folks that the one resting on a Styrofoam-covered pallet on his trailer just wasn't a winner this time.
Nope, Bob “Doc” Liggett told everyone as he shook his head.
Even though he and his wife, Jo, had won the giant pumpkin weigh-in 13 times before – and holds the record at a whopping 1,964 pounds – there was no sense of anyone getting their hopes up that a cardboard crown would sit atop his family's fruit this year.
Still, he was excited to see how everyone else would do.
Sure, coronavirus canceled the Circleville Pumpkin Show – which has run since 1903 and bills itself as Ohio's oldest and largest festival, bringing in as many as 400,000 visitors each year to this Pickaway County seat – but no one in the Circleville Giant Pumpkin Growers Club was going to let a pandemic steal every bit of their joy.
Longtime emcee Ernie Weaver decided the people who grow these massive pumpkins were going to get their day to shine.
“I just said awhile back ‘We're gonna weigh the damn punkins,”' Weaver said.
And so came about the Circleville Pumpkin No-show Giant Pumpkin Weigh-in.
On Wednesday morning – same as on the third Wednesday of October ev
ery year – people lined up in more than two dozen trucks and vans so that they could see how well they'd done in their patch this season.
Weaver and his cohorts tried to make it as close to normal as possible, but everyone admitted it just wasn't the same.
Typically, the four-day Pumpkin Show takes over downtown Circleville and the streets and sidewalks are packed with vendors and food and entertainment. The weigh-in kicks off the festivities each year at the intersection of Court and Main streets.
This year, however, downtown was desolate and quiet as the sun came up Wednesday. The weigh-in was held at the fairgrounds so that people could safely keep their distance.
A few dozen townspeople came to watch, setting up lawn chairs near the table that held the the winners' trophies. But mostly, the crowd was the growers and their friends.
People just seemed pleased this part of the tradition wasn't stolen away.
Steven Thornhill had only grown once before, and his pumpkin weighed in at 754 pounds that year. This year, though, he had a seed that came from Doc Liggett's line, so he was certain he had a contender.
The crowd had patiently waited almost three hours through the weighing of 35 of 38 pumpkins – the “smallest” of which was 91 pounds and was the only one that arrived in the backseat of a Chevy sedan – to finally get to the biggies.
Thornhill, a 35-year-old from Canal Winchester, watched as the track hoe operator hoisted his biggest pumpkin – he had brought two – onto the scales. As it was swung into place, Weaver let out a hardy “Hooooo, boy.”
“What a nice pumpkin,” he told Thornhill. “Formed perfectly. Just beautiful.”
And when the digital scales flashed 1,644 pounds the crowd erupted into hoots and cheers.
Thornhill pumped a fist.
“Pretty good,” he said. “That's just pretty good.”
But he was worried, too. Doc Liggett, 81, and his grandson, 20-year-old Chase Liggett, were up next with theirs. Sure,
Liggett didn't expect his to win. But everyone else was less skeptical.
The antsy crowd tossed out weight guesses as the digital numbers flashed. Then the answer came – a whopping 1,755.5 pounds.
“Well,” Doc Liggett said walking away with an obvious grin under his face mask. “What do you know?”
There was but one more. The pumpkin brought by Rusty Ortman, a microbiologist and greenhouse owner from Chillicothe, barely fit on his pickup's trailer. And it took more than one try to get it strapped tightly enough that it could be safely swung onto the scales.
People in the crowd speculated this might be it, the one that might finally break the Liggett family's record set in 2014.
This time, the crowd counted down out loud: "Five, four, three, two, one...."
And there it was, flashing in red: 1,725.5. She weighed lighter than she looked. It wasn't enough. The Liggetts were champions yet again.
The giant pumpkins will be on display at the Pickaway County Fairgrounds, 415 Lancaster Pike, Circleville, through Saturday. They are placed in a circle near the main entrance so visitors can drive around and see them without exiting a vehicle. A few food vendors will also be set up from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. each day and the traditional pumpkin tower has also been built. hzachariah@dispatch.com @hollyzachariah