Pumpkin Weighing 1,910 Pounds Wins Contest

HALF MOON BAY, Calif. (AP) — An annual pumpkin-weighing contest in Northern California has a new winner: A third-grade teacher in Washington state who raised a giant one weighing 1,910 pounds.

Forty-two-year-old Cindy Tobeck, who lives outside Olympia, Washington, said her pumpkin grew steadily since she planted it in April, spending much of that time in a greenhouse with heated soil. She said the secret to growing giant pumpkins is using the right seed.

Hers came from a 2,230-pound pumpkin that won a different contest last year.

Timothy Beeman, a spokesman for the Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Half Moon Bay, said Tobeck beat out more than two dozen other pumpkins from Oregon, Washington and California. The runner-up weighed 1,723 pounds. Tobeck was shy of the contest record by about 150 pounds.

At $6 a pound, Tobeck will receive nearly $11,500 in prize money.