Pumpkin planners are divided on the importance of a world record jack-o-lantern count
Festival outlooks vary within the city
By ANIKA CLARK, The Sentinel staff
As dusk falls tonight over Keene’s Main Street, the once-tame roadway will turn dark and seedy — literally — and the Elm City will try once again to claim its spot in pumpkin history.
The fight to take back the Guinness world record from Boston for the most lit jack-o’-lanterns in one place seems to carry a certain underdog appeal.
But one might wonder: Does global pumpkin domination really matter?
“I think it’s very important,” said former Keene mayor Michael E.J. Blastos. “Really, I thought it gave Keene such bragging rights. ... I remember how proud we were when we broke ... the record.”
Keene’s last record-breaking effort was in 2003, with 28,952 jack-o’-lanterns.
Blastos said he still has doubts about Boston’s tallying methods and never did agree that Boston legitimately stole the world title from Keene with a reported 30,128 pumpkins in 2006.
“We are David and they were Goliath, but we still, I think, beat the pants off them,” he said.
Mayor Philip Dale Pregent took a very different tack.
“Actually, I am not as concerned about whether we set the record or not,” he said. “I am much more concerned that this become a very good community event.”
Blastos and Pregent stand at opposite ends of a great philosophical pumpkin divide that runs throughout the city — splitting those who think more emphasis should be put on the festival as a community event and those aching for a Beantown beat down.
Among the ranks of Pumpkin Festival’s organizing group, Center Stage Cheshire County, Festival Coordinator Suzanne L. Woodward said, “Half the board of directors really wants that record back. And the other half are singing the tune, ‘Let’s get away from the record stuff. Let’s just focus on the community event.’ ”
Pegging herself a “very competitive person,” Woodward said she’s striving for pumpkin gold. But meanwhile, she thinks the debate represents something of a “rock-and-a-hard-place” situation because the record is part of what’s bringing people to the event in the first place.
Center Stage President William H. Harris offered a similar assessment.
The pumpkins, and people’s eagerness to play their own part in breaking the record, draw people to Main Street, he said. But, he added, “the other side of that is the pumpkins and the record and the crowd that that draws shifts the focus ... albeit not intentionally ... from the community and the nonprofits up and down Main Street.”
His personal opinion?
“I think the record’s important. ... I would like nothing better than to get that record back to our community.”
However, numerous people on Main Street Thursday said besting Boston — while it’d be a nice orange feather in the city’s cap — isn’t that important to them.
“I just think it’s a fun community event,” said David R. Barnes, who listed trying to beat Boston as just one of many things he enjoys about the festival.
Lindy’s Diner co-owner Nancy M. Petrillo said she loves Pumpkin Festival — record or not.
And Keene resident Brian L. Shollenberger, whose parents had just come to town from Pennsylvania for the festivities, offered similar thoughts.
“I would say the record mattered more years ago,” he said. “I think it was talked about more back then.”
Other people stand more in the middle.
Among them is Swanzey resident Elizabeth A. West, who said Pumpkin Festival is, first and foremost, a fun event.
Still, she explained, “I actually thought, ‘Gee, It’s too bad we don’t have the record anymore.’ ... It does kind of irritate me a little.”
Center Stage board member Frank G. Mazzola stressed that the goals of fostering community and reclaiming the record from Boston aren’t mutually exclusive.
“I think that the general public perception and opinion is that ... a big part of the festival is the count and the contest,” he said.
But he added, “I think there’s a reluctant acknowledgment that we may have reached saturation in terms of our ability to raise (the) number of pumpkins.”
As a result, he said, Center Stage is trying to develop other aspects of the event to keep it interesting. For this reason, and other issues, pumpkins will be brought down from two giant towers this year so they can be closer to eye level.
Meanwhile, 17-year-old Matthew P. Cheever of Chesterfield said he just goes to the festival to have a good time.
But that doesn’t mean he’d wouldn’t love to squash Boston.
“It’s not fair they stole (our festival),” he said. “That put us on the map.”
Anika Clark can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1432, or aclark@keenesentinel.com.
This was published Friday, Oct. 24, 2009 in The Keene Sentinel
