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HARVEYS LAKE — So what if Zack Borgeson borrowed his idea for a Halloween pumpkin from the internet.
The 14-year-old from the Beaumont area created a cheeseburger out of a seasonal gourd and entered it into the pumpkin carving contest held by the Harveys Lake Recreation Committee at Jonathans bar and restaurant Saturday afternoon.
“I got cabbage, pickles, tomatoes,” he said going through the toppings. They rested atop a hot pad doubling as a burger and a yellow fabric square substituting for cheese. For the onions he used white plastic rings and stuck pumpkin seeds on the top half of the pumpkin for a sesame-seed effect.
No, he was not planning to study art after high school. “Just having fun,” was what it’s all about, he said.
So were the kids and adults, some dressed in costume, at the contest that’s been held for approximately 10 years. The winners receive gift cards, and two bicycles, a boy’s and a girl’s plus helmets, are raffled off.
“It’s a nice turnout,” said Mike Rush, chairman of the committee. The contestants bring their own pumpkins to carve and for participating they get a meal from the restaurant and a bag filled with candy. The overall winning pumpkin will be displayed at Jonathans. Outside the kids could climb into a wagon for a hayride provided by HL Powersports.
More than 60 pumpkins were entered and ranged from the traditional Jack-o-Lantern with triangle eyes and nose and a gap-toothed smile to the imaginative like Borgeson’s. The contestants wrote their names and ages on a piece of paper and stuck it under the pumpkins. Not everyone was as forthcoming as a Ayden Picchi, 3. Michell’e Boice, a Harveys Lake councilwoman, listed her age as,”Old.”
Picchi and his mother, Heather, carved away at at a table. “We’re making a kitty cat,” he said. His sister, Alahna Morris, 8, worked solo and on a different theme. “A scary one,” she said.
Scary, creepy and crawly described the entry by T.J. Valatka, 5, of Dallas. With the help of his dad, Tim, they cut up a pumpkin and decorated it with plastic bugs and snakes crawling in and out and put in a green glow stick inside. “That’s pretty cool isn’t it?” the dad said.
Lori Kucewicz, secretary of the recreation committee, worried her pumpkin would be hard to recognize. “I’m trying to make a cat,” she said. When she added the whiskers, there was no mistaking it.
A teacher at the Lake-Noxen Elementary School, she handed out fliers letting kids know about the contest. She was pleased to see the response.
“It’s nice to get the kids involved and keep them busy,” Kucewicz said.
