62nd-annual Barnesville Pumpkin Festival gets underway
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BARNESVILLE -- The 62nd-annual Barnesville Pumpkin Festival is officially underway. Thursday evening saw Becky Carpenter Hunkler, who was the first Pumpkin Queen, cut the ribbon to mark the official start of the event.
Carpenter Hunkler was the 1968 Pumpkin Queen and she said that it was an honor to be invited back to mark the start of this year’s festival.
She still lives in Barnesville and said that she was nervous before she cut the ribbon because she’s never done something like that before.
“It was fun and my family and friends came. It was special,” Carpenter Hunkler said.
She added that family members who live out of town came to see her be honored and cut the ribbon.
“My kids are all here, and they don’t live around here, and my friends came from when I used to work at Belmont College and other places,” Carpenter Hunkler said. “It’s just a homecoming. It is a homecoming more than even regular class reunions -- this is like a huge class reunion because so many people come back for it.”
She added she knows there are people who specifically plan their vacation time off from work around the Pumpkin Festival every year just so they can attend.
Prior to cutting the ribbon, Carpenter Hunkler was presented with an award by her longtime friend, Tom Brill, in appreciation for her service as the official ribbon cutter.
Brill had presented Carpenter Hunkler with the inaugural queen award in 1968.
“He was the head of the Future Farmers of America. He graduated a year behind me, and we’ve remained friends for all these years,” Carpenter Hunkler said.
While reflecting on the 1968 Pumpkin Queen pageant, she said that it’s amazing to see how far the festival has come.
“Nobody ever dreamed that the little festival that wasn’t even called the Pumpkin Festival back then would grow into something so big,” Carpenter Hunkler said. “I sat on a pumpkin to get my picture taken and it weighed 130 pounds, which is small potatoes compared to what we’ve got now, but it was just the Fall Fest back then.”
The event that became the Barnesville Pumpkin Festival was originally called the Barnesville Fall Fest, and it was started by Vernon Burkhart in the basement of Assumption Catholic Church.
This year’s festival has been dedicated to the memory of longtime President Tim Rockwell, who died unexpectedly on April 30.
Current President Keith Williams was Rockwell’s vice president as well as a longtime friend.
He said that he is doing his best to honor Rockwell’s legacy and to make him proud.
“I’ve always been there beside Tim, and we did a lot of great things together. I never wanted to be the president, because he did such a good job, and he was a great leader,” Williams said.
“We did a lot of projects together, and there’s a lot more that he wanted to do. He had a vision, and I’m gonna try to hold up his vision. It’ll probably take me several years because he always had a new project,” Williams added.
Rockwell was always in motion and extremely dedicated to the festival, he remembered.
Williams said that Rockwell is missed by the entire committee.
“But we’ll get through this. I’ve got a lot of great people helping me. I’ve got a great vice president and all of the committee members have stepped up in the right direction,” Williams said. “Everybody felt the pain of losing him. He was just a great guy and he’ll be missed.”
Vice President Cody Harris said that he became involved with the festival five years ago after Rockwell contacted him when a golf cart broke down during the festival.
“Tim got a hold of me because he had a golf cart break down and he knew that I do mechanic work on the side, so he had me swing by here and take care of it and I guess I never left,” Harris said.