Travis Gienger drove from Minnesota to California with a pumpkin in his truck’s trailer. His wife, Megan, a manager of risk adjustment coding and quality at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, met him there for a pumpkin weighing contest in Half Moon Bay, California, the pumpkin capital of the world.

Maverick, named for its resiliency, was crowned North America’s largest pumpkin, coming in at 2,560 lbs., and this weekend won the Guinness world record for largest jack-o-lantern.

Though his competitors grew their pumpkins in fair-weathered west coast states, Travis’ pumpkin Maverick survived both a colder climate and a bucket dropped on it in its infancy. He didn’t think Maverick would survive past a month, let alone continue to grow for over 100 days to be the largest pumpkin in North America.

When Travis and Megan packed up to go to California, they had high hopes for their pumpkin, but couldn’t be too sure.

“There was another pumpkin there that looked pretty big,” Megan says. “I was thinking that that pumpkin might beat ours by a small margin, but it turned out to be a lot lighter than ours and that’s how they measure. We ended up beating that pumpkin by a few hundred pounds.”

The second-place pumpkin, raised in Oregon, weighed in at 2,424 lbs., just over 100 lbs. lighter than Maverick.

“I thought I’d have a larger margin of error, honestly,” Travis says. “The second-place person was right behind me, but I had the record by a few pounds.”

This year marked the 49^th anniversary of the Pumpkin Weigh Off contest. Travis and Megan previously won in 2020 with their pumpkin weighing in at 2,350 lbs., North America’s largest pumpkin at the time. Two years later, and after hours of listening to each pumpkin be weighed, Travis and Megan finally learned they had won again.

“It felt really great to be the winner,” Travis says. “To set North America’s largest on nearly the 50^th anniversary was really cool. It’s about a 180-day process from planting to cutting so this win is exciting.”

Travis, also a teacher and a business owner, fertilized Maverick 14 times per day. Megan estimated he was outside working with the pumpkin several hours each day.

The hard work paid off as Travis took home the grand prize of $23,040. Pumpkin growers earn $9 for every pound their pumpkin weighs.

In addition to the competition winnings, Travis can sell Maverick’s seeds. They were removed carefully at the carving in Anoka, Minn. this weekend and will dry for multiple weeks. Travis then plans to donate some to local organizations for their auction, as well as sell some internationally. He’s already received inquiries for his seeds from Germany.

The carving took place at Anoka’s Halloween festival, available for the public to view. Travis worked with carver, Mike Rudolph, who also carved his winning pumpkin in 2020. That year he turned Travis’ pumpkin into a tiger after the pumpkin’s name, Tiger King.

This year, Mike carved an eagle into Maverick.

“I wanted to do something different,” Travis says. “Everyone does faces. Mike wanted to do a face, but he’ll be carving other faces into large pumpkins this year already.”

Maverick then became the world’s largest jack-o-lantern.

“I used to read the Guinness Book of World Records waiting in the dentist office as a kid, and I always thought I was going to make it into that book someday,” Travis says. “I’m not done yet. I am going to try for the world’s largest pumpkin next.”

Maverick will make a few more appearances around the cities before being put back in the pumpkin patch for composting and wildlife to snack on. You can see it all day on Halloween at Nowthen City Hall.

 

video sourced from Fox 9 Minneapolis