2008 Woodie Awards
Festival has roots in downtown commerce, community involvement
Chris Reynolds
Issue date: 10/25/07 Section: Keene Pumpkin Festival
The dancers perform at the festival to entertain the crowd and to raise funds to support their team.
The second year of the festival, Keene set the Guinness World Record for most jack-o'-lanterns lit in one place with 1,628 pumpkins. Since then the festival has broken its own record seven times by a large margin on nearly every occasion.
In 2005 a flood washed through Keene, diminishing the growing number of jack-o'-lanterns sizably.
Senior Kate Lesniewski recalled the small number of festival-goers that year and how the quantity of pumpkins declined by a large amount. Rainy days have put a damper on the event attendance numbers as well over the years.
Ciarleglio also recalled a good amount of pumpkins were ruined by the flood waters. "It was a lot bigger when I went my freshman year," she said.
Keene's last record was set in 2003 with 28,952 jack-o-lanterns. Woodward said no one has come close to Keene's record since last year. In 2006 Keene had 24,682 lit pumpkins while Boston, Mass. slid ahead with about 30,000.
The Boston Pumpkin Festival started in 2003 and was sponsored by clothing line Life is good. The Boston festival was intended to break the record previously held by Keene.
Now sponsored by MarketBasket, the Boston festival raises money in support of Camp Sunshine, a camp program for children with life threatening diseases, according to the Boston festival's Web site..
One tradition that occurs nearly every year are uniquely executed marriage proposals.
Always keep an eye open for them while walking amongst the many orange gourds lining Main Street. Woodward said they usually are written in the jack-o'-lanterns on the towers.
The second year of the festival, Keene set the Guinness World Record for most jack-o'-lanterns lit in one place with 1,628 pumpkins. Since then the festival has broken its own record seven times by a large margin on nearly every occasion.
In 2005 a flood washed through Keene, diminishing the growing number of jack-o'-lanterns sizably.
Senior Kate Lesniewski recalled the small number of festival-goers that year and how the quantity of pumpkins declined by a large amount. Rainy days have put a damper on the event attendance numbers as well over the years.
Ciarleglio also recalled a good amount of pumpkins were ruined by the flood waters. "It was a lot bigger when I went my freshman year," she said.
Keene's last record was set in 2003 with 28,952 jack-o-lanterns. Woodward said no one has come close to Keene's record since last year. In 2006 Keene had 24,682 lit pumpkins while Boston, Mass. slid ahead with about 30,000.
The Boston Pumpkin Festival started in 2003 and was sponsored by clothing line Life is good. The Boston festival was intended to break the record previously held by Keene.
Now sponsored by MarketBasket, the Boston festival raises money in support of Camp Sunshine, a camp program for children with life threatening diseases, according to the Boston festival's Web site..
One tradition that occurs nearly every year are uniquely executed marriage proposals.
Always keep an eye open for them while walking amongst the many orange gourds lining Main Street. Woodward said they usually are written in the jack-o'-lanterns on the towers.
Be the first to comment on this story