OTUS THE HEAD CAT : Melon doping claim taints Hope record
Posted on Saturday, August 18, 2007
Dear Otus, Being something of a connoisseur of the succulent citrullus lanatus, I always try to keep tabs on the Hope Watermelon Festival to note how big the annual winner is. I looked in the paper this week, but I didn’t find an article on who won the biggest watermelon contest. Can you fill me in ? — Sandy Agrande Mountain View Dear Sandy, It was wholly a pleasure to hear from you and a double pleasure to have the opportunity to report the latest on the controversy. Oh, yes. There is controversy. Big watermelon controversy. Controversy that could shake the multi-billion dollar industry to its very vines.
The Hope Watermelon Festival hasn’t seen this much excitement since Aug. 23, 1980, when then-Gov. Bill Clinton lost the watermelon-eating contest to then-Rep. Beryl Anthony, but stormed back to humiliate him in the seed-spitting and cowchip tossing contests.
Clinton went on to become president and Anthony, his spirit broken, eventually lost his seat to Jay Dickey, which is an embarrassing blot on anyone’s career.
Don’t be fooled by the generally festive atmosphere in Hope during the annual festival. Growing watermelons is big business and the bigger the melon, the bigger the bucks.
Who can forget the steroid controversy of ’ 98 ? That’s when one Noah Ansaheer of McCaskill was heralded as the new champion, having finally knocked off longtime watermelon king Lloyd Bright.
Ansaheer’s melon, a Melitopolski / Orangeglo hybrid, tipped the scale at 265. 1 pounds, shattering Bright’s record at the time by 2. 1 pounds.
Then, after officials detected what they termed “unnatural baldness, periods of rage and rind acne,” the melon was tested and turned out positive for anabolic steroids.
Ansaheer was banned for life from the watermelon festival.
What’s the payoff for growing the biggest watermelon ? Sure, there are bragging rights and the famed John S. Gibson Trophy, but there are also fortunes involved.
Each year the winning melon is put out to stud, so to speak. Its seeds are harvested, hermetically sealed, and sold to the highest bidder.
For many years the seeds were bought by the Siegers Seed Co. of Holland, Mich. Through 2004, the top price Siegers paid for a winning melon was $ 2, 750.
Then a frenzied bidding war got under way in 2005 when the Bright family produced two record-breakers from a single field. A 262. 6 pound melon was registered on Aug. 29 that year and was followed on Sept. 3 by a monster melon weighing 268. 8 pounds.
For that last effort Bright was awarded a Guinness World Records certificate.
The framed honor is on display at Hope’s Dos Loco Gringos Mexican Food and Steakhouse on North Hervey Street (next to the Holiday Inn Express ).
Once the record had topped the magical 268 figure, Siegers suddenly had competition from the Harris Moran Seed Co. and hybrid specialists the D. Palmer Seed Co.
Before the dust settled, the Bright family had pocketed $ 476, 000 for the two melons. Individual seeds from the recordsetters are expected to sell for $ 3, 500 each. That set off a record-growing frenzy that culminated in this year’s unprecedented melon turned in by Dale Casseday. He claimed he achieved the beast by feeding it a special fertilizer of blood meal, manure, compost, high phosphorous and potassium tablets and lengthening its growing day with the use of a metal halide grow light that produced 129 lumens per watt. Concerned festival officials claim Casseday is guilty of “juice doping.” They say he infused his melon with homologous pulp that enabled it to top the scales at an astonishing 284 pounds — an unheard of increase in the world record. It’ll be difficult to prove since Casseday’s melon has a rind with the tensile strength of fiberglass and he has turned it into a propane tank. His record may go into the books, but it will probably have an asterisk as officially protested. Until next time, Kalaka reminds you the heaviest cat in Guinness World Records weighed 46. 8 pounds. Disclaimer: Fayetteville-born Otus the Head Cat’s award-winning column of humorous fabrication appears every Saturday. E-mail: mstorey@arkansasonline. com
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