LOGAN — Last year, Mark Anderson of Anderson Seed & Garden, and organizer of the first Center Street Giant Pumpkin Festival, was grateful for all the help he received to get the festival going.
“Just so many people stepped up to help us put that on for the first year, and especially the Giant Pumpkin Growers Association of Utah. We can’t do the weigh-off without them because they’re the ones that grow the pumpkins.
“And so, so many things had to fall together, come together last year for it to work out. We anticipated maybe five or 8,000 people, we thought it would be great if we got 10,000 people, our estimates were about 15-17,000 people showed up last year,” Anderson explained.
Last year’s winning pumpkin weighed in at 1,787 pounds.
We’ll see if that record can be beat, as they’re ready to do it again this year.
The 2nd annual Center Street Giant Pumpkin Festival is Saturday, Sept. 28th on West Center Street in downtown Logan.
On a recent KVNU For the People program, Anderson said they will start weighing pumpkins at 11 a.m.
“We’ve got kids categories and the Pumpkin Growers Commonwealth which is international, they have categories of different vegetables too, so (they will) actually be weighing giant tomatoes for the biggest tomato in Utah, and they’ve got a giant squash category, and they’ve got a giant watermelon category.
“We’ll start with the kids categories, and if you’ve got kids that have grown some giant pumpkins, they can enter those for free.”
He said the big weigh-off for giant pumpkins will probably start around 12:30 p.m or so, and by 4 or 4:30 p.m. they will hopefully be weighing the biggest three pumpkins of the event, then they will crown the Center Street Giant.
“During the day we’ve got, I think this year, we’ve got 112 vendor booths and food trucks. So, there’s going to be food and activities and music. We’ve got music like every 2 hours at the Laub Plaza.
“There will be a different music groups performing at 11, at 1 and at 3 o’clock, and then at 5 o’clock we’ve got our main event. We’ll have the Lonely Hearts Club band, which is a Beatles cover band, they’ll be playing from 5 o’clock until dark.”
Other events include a pie eating contest and free movies at the Utah Theater, featuring “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” showing throughout the afternoon, beginning at 12:30 p.m.