Belmont County Inmates Enter Weigh-Off at Barnesville Pumpkin Festival
Kailey Carpino Trending
Prisoners at Belmont Correctional Institute planted pumpkins back in May, and now they plan to enter the Barnesville Pumpkin Festival Weigh-Off for the first time today.
Weigh-off organizer Dean Wehr went to Belmont Correctional Institute to look at the planned pumpkin entry on Monday morning and said that it should place in the top 10.
"We're excited to be part of it. It's a big part of the valley. You know, this is our home," Warden David Gray said of the inmates and staff.
Gray said the institute grew pumpkins last year to compete with other Ohio correctional institutes.
That competition will take place in Mansfield, Ohio, in a few weeks and is organized through the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.
"We didn't even intend to get involved in the Barnesville Pumpkin Festival. So this is actually an internal agency-wide challenge. We were challenged last year by Mansfield Correctional Institution, and the director supported the challenge, and we won it with a little over 500-pound pumpkin. We learned a lot from growing that pumpkin," Gray said.
Belmont Correctional Institute won the competition last year with a 596-pound pumpkin named "Pipsqueak."
The pumpkin patch inside the institute's grounds is named the Brooks Bosworth Pumpkin Patch. Bosworth was a correction officer who helped mentor the pumpkin growers before his death two years ago. Incarcerated people designed and created a sign in Bosworth's memory to mark the pumpkin patch.
BCI staff member John Jaskowiak has been overseeing the project and has been guiding the prisoners on how to care for the pumpkins. He said that he set a goal to grow one pumpkin of over 1,000 pounds.
"It really took off, and I believe the largest pumpkin is over 1,000 pounds. We have another one that's over 500 and a third that I'm guessing is around 800 pounds," he said.
The Barnesville Pumpkin Festival Weigh-Off will take place from 6-9 p.m. today in downtown Barnesville at the corner of Main and Chestnut streets. The contest is open to everyone with no entry fees.
The person with the heaviest entry that captures the title of "King Pumpkin" will receive $2 per pound after all pumpkins are weighed.
JB Digital Media is partnering with Belmont County Tourism to livestream the weigh-off. The stream will be viewable on the Belmont County Tourism Facebook page beginning at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday.
Gray said he hopes that staff and inmates can watch the livestream from the institute.
"We don't have access to Facebook in here, but we'll try to make it work.," he said.
Gray said that staff and prisoners are already making plans for next year's pumpkin patch.
"They already know where they could have done things a little differently to approach the situation. We've doubled our weight from last year. We're only two years into this thing. So the guys here have learned quite a bit from this and they want to continue," Gray said.