I would like to personally thank everyone who participated in the Great Pumpkin Contest. Thank you very much for participating in this Halloween event and adding to the spirit of Halloween with your pumpkin creations.

First place winning entry for the 2008 Great Pumpkin Contest came form: Barbara Croft of Smyrna, Tennessee.

First Place 2008 Great Pumpkin Contest
Barbara Croft,Smyrna, TN

Barbara Croft submitted some very nice pumpkin carvings and receives the 2008 Great Pumpkin Contest First Place Award for the above shown entry. This is wonderful expression of the spirit of the Great Pumpkin and Halloween and most impressed our judges, receiving "Oooees" and "Ahhhhs" from all the judges and a big, "Wow! That's great!" from the Master Goblin, himself. The first place prize T-shirt has been ordered. Please be patient. This will be shipped shortly directly from the factory at CafePress. The winner has been notified by email of their award and should reply when the package is received. Thank you!

I would like to give a special shout-out and say THANK YOU FOR SHOWING ME YOUR PUMPKINS AND WONDERFUL HALLOWEEN CREATIONS to a number of people as an honorable mention:

1. Angela Cree, Savannah, GA
2. John Smudrick, Lenoir City, TN
3. Tiah Smith, Dupo, IL
4. Sandi Rice, Hobart, IN
5. Shannon Matson, Westfield, MA
6. Helayna Peretta, Lahaina, HI

Again, I would like to thank everyone for their participation in the Great Pumpkin Contest. There were some very creative entries, especially when it came to carving pumpkins. However, we were looking entries that evoked the spirit of Halloween, meaning Jack-o-lanterns got higher scores than Mona Lisa pumpkin heads or pumpkins made into airplanes, rocket ships or other modes of transportation. However, I was hoping to see some Cinderella style pumpkin coaches... but none were entered this year. Perhaps next year someone could do that.

I hope everyone enjoyed their participation in the 2008 Great Pumpkin Contest. If you did not have the opportunity to participate, please consider an entry for the 2009 contest, which is hereby being announced. But for the 2009 contest we are also be considering not only pumpkins, but original scarecrows. So you can take photographs now of original scarecrows while they are still in season. You should send your original 2009 Halloween theme photographs in now -- which is also a good idea as there are still many Jack-o-lanterns and scarecrows around that you may want to photograph. Note: you can NOT send in the same entries that you already made, but please keep in mind that we want Jack-o-lanters and scarecrows for the 2009 contest and will be accepting entries all year long.

Send your entry form and photographs to: 2009 Great Pumpkin & Scarecrow Contest.

Halloween Pumpkin Source: Wikipedia

People think it's easy being a pumpkin, that we just sit around in the field night and day gorging ourselves on vine juice. But I'm here to tell you it's not so. We pumpkins have a hard life!

Just the other day some glokers came around the pumpkin patch staring at all the pumpkins. How would you like it if strangers broke into your home saying things like, "Oooooh! Ahhhhhhh! That's a big one!" Then this guy pulled out a knife, slit my brother Gregory's vine, picked him up, threw him in a pickup truck and carted him off! All the kids were jumping up and down, screaming and yelling, cheering this gourd thief on, like he was a hero. It was disgusting!

This sort of thing has been happening more and more. The closer it gets to Halloween, the more pumpkins that have been molested and abducted from the pumpkin patch. It is simply hideous! Oh, I know, you humans think taking pumpkins, turning them into foolish jack-o-lanters or making them into pies is fun and filling. But I'm a pumpkin and I'm here to tell you it's not!

It's hard being a pumpkin. After seeing what has happened to many of my fellow pumpkins, I live in fear. One never knows when they will be next. How would you like it if you were minding your own business and some intruders came stomping through your patch, invading your territory, and then abduct your brothers and sisters! It's horrifying! One cannot get any sleep knowing that you may be next, that one day your vine may be cut close to the gourd, and you will just be whisked off to The Great Pumpkin only knows where!

Yes, I've heard all the stories, we pumpkins are not dumb. We have a rich filling and know our history, passing it from generation to generation. We know pumpkins are regarded as only gourds, as colorful fruits, meant for human consumption. What people don't realize is that pumpkins have a heart and soul too! And we pumpkins have long memories.

One day there is going to be a pumpkin revolt. All the pumpkins are going to rise up, come alive and march out of the field to protest how they have been treated. After all, we pumpkins have a list of grievances longer than those listed by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. To begin with:

No one should take the life of a pumpkin without due process of law, respecting the Great Pumpkin Code that a prayer should be said and each pumpkin should be honored and praised for the sacrifice they make when cut from the vine!

In the words of The Great Pumpkin, every pumpkin should be blessed, dousing it with water and praying the Great Pumpkin oath, "Thank you for giving us this gorgeous pumpkin to grace our lives and bring joy and fulfillment unto our family and homes!" Only then should a pumpkin be cut from its vine.

But the ancient lore of The Great Pumpkin has been forgotten or ignored. Most pumpkins die a disgraceful death. They are cut from the vine without a word of prayer and whisked away by human hoards at Halloween who view them as only gourds. Then their caps are cut off, their seeds and filling are removed and disgustingly discarded in the garbage disposal, a wasteful and disgraceful act. After their insides are removed and disposed of, they are crudely cut and carved, turned into foolish jack-o-lanterns, with happy faces and insulting, snaggletooth smiles that would make any dentist cringe! Then a scorching candle is placed inside them, to burn and torture them from the inside out! They are set outside upon porch or step, to glow in agony, no one about to hear their cries. What children they attract are but greedy little witches, devils and goblins, that shout only "Trick-or-Treat!" and hold out their grubby little hands for candy! It is disgusting and disgraceful!

Then we pumpkins are left to rot. Fruit flies swarm to the stench, laying eggs upon our flesh, maggots hatching out, digging and burrowing into our skins, devouring what essence is left of us, until we are but a crumpled mass of our once majestic selves. Such is the fate of a Halloween pumpkin!

Should one survive this hideous ritual, what is to come? For many pumpkins their fate is to be piled into trucks and carted off. They are then stacked and displayed in their nakedness in stores and markets like common gourds. When sold they are taken, washed, cut open and once again their seeds and inners removed and disposed of without any regard for planting seeds to insure a future generation! How would you like it if this were done to you? To know all your seeds are thought nothing of, ground up in a garbage disposal, that nothing will ever come of your children is a nightmare we pumpkins wish upon no mortal humans! So why then do they treat us so horribly?

Not all pumpkin seeds have this fate; some are taken, set upon sheets, covered with salt and spices, and baked in the oven, literally roasted! Then they are cracked open and eaten! Only a relatively few pumpkin seeds survive to ever be planted. That is how we pumpkins have been treated by humans.

Yet the list of grievances does not end there. After our inners are grossly disposed of, we have had our flesh cut, mashed and mutilated, put into food processors and turned into purée, then set in pans and baked in ovens, turned into Thanksgiving Day pies! Yet this was all done without one word of thanks or prayer given as per the Great Pumpkin Code.

We pumpkins have contributed much to the health and welfare of the human race, especially in America. Hence it is only right and proper that we be treated with dignity and respect, that not a single pumpkin ever be cut from the vine without honors first being given and the proper prayer and blessing being made. Is this too much to ask? Why or why Great Pumpkin have we pumpkins been forsaken?

Is it too much to ask that all pumpkins be treated with dignity and respect? Is it too much to ask that our seeds be planted that there may always be a new generation of pumpkins? Is it too much to ask that we not be made into such fools at Halloween, but that if we are to be cut, carved and mutilated, that at least some skill and talent be added to the craft and we be portrayed as more than snaggletooth jack-o-lanterns?

We pumpkins are a great race, of the genus Cucurbita and the family Cucurbitaceae, we are the largest of gourds, the grandest and most majestic of our species which includes Cucurbita pepo, Cucurbita mixta, Cucurbita maxima, and Cucurbita moschata. We should be treated as such and the Great Pumpkin Code should be honored.

Yet every year we pumpkins are treated like common gourds. In some places the madness has turned to pure genocide. Thousands upon thousands of my pumpkin kin and turned into jock-o-lanterns, stacked one atop the other to excite and thrill spectators, fireworks and music blasting from the pumpkin patch, only to then be carted away by the truck load to be fed to the pigs! It is outrageous! This is the ultimate disgusting and humiliating insult to we pumpkins who have a long history in legend and lore. Why would the people of Keene, New Hampshire treat us in such an undignified way! We pumpkins have never done anything so horrible to them to be treated as pulp for pigs!

So be warned! We pumpkins are not going to take it any more. One day we will rise up and rebel. I've seen visions! The day is coming when all pumpkins will rebel and take life. One Halloween night in the not too distant future it will happen. As children masquerade and trick-or-treat from house to house the spirit of the Great Pumpkin will be evoked. It will give life to all the pumpkins in every pumpkin patch across the land and they will rise as from the dead, coming to life to avenge their ancestors for the countless generations of genocide of pumpkins! All across America pumpkins will rise up and fling themselves upon the children, they will take flight and shatter the windows of every house and home, setting them ablaze! The pumpkins will rise up and smash themselves into cars and trucks, causing havoc upon every highway and Interstate! The pumpkin rebellion will bring death and destruction beyond all measure unto those who have forsaken the Great Pumpkin Code and defiled pumpkins for generations.

But there is hope. You may be spared. You can regain the good grace of the Great Pumpkin. On that fateful Halloween night when the pumpkins come to life across the land and seek retribution for all the suffering they have endured for eons, you can be saved. All you have to do is mend your ways. Remember the oath of the Great Pumpkin and utter it aloud in any sacrifice you make of pumpkins, saying, "Thank you for giving us this gorgeous pumpkin to grace our lives and bring joy and fulfillment unto our family and homes!" If you do but this, then you will be spared when the pumpkins come to life and take back the world.