Minnesota Teacher Wins Pumpkin-Weighing Contest for Fourth Year in a Row

Travis Gienger has 2,471 reasons to celebrate. On Oct. 14, the Anoka, Minnesota, horticulture teacher won the Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off for the fourth year in a row.

His massive pumpkin, whose name is Rudy, weighed in at 2,471 pounds and earned the educator significant prize money. The Half Moon Bay, California, contest awards the winning participant $9/pound, meaning Gienger took home $22,239 for his efforts.

He was also awarded a Pumpkin King Champion Ring, a Mel Mello Sr. Grand Champion Growers Jacket, two nights at the posh luxury hotel The Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay, and a starring role in the Half Moon Bay Art & Pumpkin Festival and Great Pumpkin Parade.

Rudy bested the weight of the next-largest competitor by six pounds. Gienger did fall short of his world record weight, though. Last year, his pumpkin weighed in at 2,749 pounds, setting a world record. If he had bested that this year, Gienger would have taken home $30,000 in prize money.

The pumpkin-weighing contest, an officially sanctioned Great Pumpkin Commonwealth site, has been running since 1974. The self-described Super Bowl of pumpkin weigh-off competitions, started thanks to a friendly beef between Circleville, Ohio, and Half Moon Bay, California, over who really was the Pumpkin Capital of the World.

The cities’ two mayors agreed to settle the debate by squaring off in a head-to-head pumpkin-weighing contest. Half Moon Bay’s biggest pumpkin weighed in at 132 pounds, besting the Ohio gourd by one pound, and thus cementing the California city in the pumpkin history books.