1995: Torrents of rain leave the record unbroken
Despite that, the festival "brings everybody together"

By ERIN CADDELL, Sentinel staff

For most of the day, Keene's effort to break its won world record for the number of lit jack-o'-lanterns in one place did not look promising.

Volunteers and visitors who came to downtown Keene early Saturday for the 5th annual Pumpkin Festival -- formerly the Harvest Festival -- were greeted not by the crisp fall air of past years, but sheet of rain.

The rain fell hardest in the early morning, when much of the region was buffeted by a thunderstorm that caused flooding and downed power lines throughout the Monadnock Region.

The floods receded and the wind died down in the morning and early afternoon, but the rain continued. In downtown Keene, crowds were thin, and vendors shivered under tents and rain slickers. Scaffolds sat empty awaiting the much-heralded gourds, while volunteers dumped water out of those that had sat out overnight.

It looked like Center Stage Cheshire County, the nonprofit group that organized the event, and sponsor Paragon-Warner Cable of Keene weren't even going to come close to breaking Keene's world jack-o'-lantern record of 10,540 carved pumpkins, set in 1994.

"I tell you, about 12 o'clock, we were in here discussing whether we were going home or not," said Ken J. Robidoux of Keene, who sat in a Keene Area Radio Emergency Squad truck. Robidoux and other volunteers provided traffic and crowd control for the event. "It was really coming down."

What a difference a few hours makes.

Ultimately, the pumpkin record stood. But "we came so close," said Denise Popko, chief organizer of the event, as she announced this year's total: 9,812.

By early evening, the rain had ended, and dozens of volunteers had lighted candles in thousands of pumpkins along Main Street and on the two 40-foot scaffolds on Railroad Square and Central Square.

A crowd Center Stage estimated at 20,000 jockeyed to get a look at the best designs -- Halloween scenes with witches and ghosts, a Frankenstein shrouded in shadow, an elaborate Indian headdress.

A country music band played at the main stage on Gilbo Avenue, while kids rode ponies nearby. Children in costume careened from store to store, squeezing in every last moment of trick-or-treating. The smell of fried sausage and fired dough wafted through the mild night air.

After 6 p.m., a crack team of 15 CPAs -- certified pumpkin accountants -- with Lehman & Wilkinson of Keene scramble to count all the pumpkins before the 8 p.m. announcement.

"The spirit is just incredible," said Trudy L. Emmerick of Keene, who marveled at an intricately cared spider web -- complete with spider -- on one pumpkin. A Harvest Festival veteran, Emmerick brought her mother, Emily, from Fitchburg, Mass., for this year's event. "Even with the rain, people really come out.'

This year's pumpkin count ended a remarkable streak of setting a world records for the most lit jack-o'-lanterns in one place. The first Harvest Festival, in 1991, boasted some 600 pumpkins. The next two years put Keene into the Guinness Book of World Records, with 1,628 and 4,817 jack-o'-lanterns, respectively. Last year's 10,000-plus smashed all expectations.

The publicity from past festivals ensured that area hotels and motels would be crowded with out-of-town visitors this weekend, and gave Keene another chance to show off to people from around the region and the Northeast.

"I think it's a very friendly community," said David N. Boyer of Rochester, N.Y. "People here are so nice, and it's exciting to see so much creativity." Boyer came over to go to the festival and visit his sister, Bridgette M. Sacco-Laurens of Brattleboro, a graduate student at Antioch New England Graduate School in Keene.

The festival was also the place to be Saturday for hundreds from the Monadnock Region.

Some used the opportunity for politicking. Keene city council candidates put up signs, a volunteer handed out stickers supporting Bob Dole, and a row of pumpkins spelled out "Buchanan for President."

"It's not just people from Keene but from the outlying towns, too," said Stephanie A. Hosking of Keene, who took a break from trick-or-treating with her sons, Grim Reaper Chris, 6, and Power Ranger Nathan, 4. The festival, she said, "brings everybody together."

This dispatch was published Monday, Oct. 28, 1995 in The Keene Sentinel