Wyoming’s Pumpkin Drop Is Going Bigger: 1,000-Pound Gourds, a 275-Foot Plunge, and an Outhouse in the Crosshairs

Clear your calendars for Oct. 4 in Worland: the Wyoming State Championship Weigh-Off and Pumpkin Drop is cranking the chaos up another 100 feet. This year’s crane will hoist one-ton class pumpkins to 275 feet—then let gravity do its thing on a very unfortunate outhouse waiting below. Organizers are shifting the Drop Zone outside the arena to push spectators farther back. As event ringleader (and self-styled Pumpkin King) Jay Richard put it:

“Dropping pumpkins from 275 feet is really getting up there, and we haven’t missed the ground yet.”

The weigh-off will pull growers from across Wyoming and beyond, all angling to tip the scales and the bragging rights. Richard won’t be rolling in a 2,000-pounder this time, but he’s watching his friend and friendly rival, Lovell grower Chad Kurtenbach, with a mix of pride and envy. Kurtenbach’s backyard behemoth is already tape-measuring north of 1,800 pounds and flirting with 1,900. He won’t know the exact number until the big lift in Worland, but Richard admits it looks bigger than “Marion,” his 1,784-pound heavy from 2023.

“I’m thrilled for him, but I’m a little jealous, not gonna lie,” Richard said. “Here I am grinding it out with climate controls and soil tests, and he might beat me from his backyard. That’s karma.”

Wyoming’s state record still belongs to Cheyenne’s Andy Corbin, who put a 2,062-pound monster on the board in 2023. Richard has been chasing that benchmark with a project he calls “P2K,” nursing his plants inside a custom greenhouse that hums with humidity control, drip irrigation and an air conditioner. The plants look like the picture of health; the pumpkins, less so. His current roster features “Kelly” at about 1,460 pounds and climbing, “Jill” around 1,250, and “Jacqueline,” which he lovingly calls “the ugliest 400-pound pumpkin ever.” He thinks too much sun slowed them down this summer and is already planning fixes—retractable shade cloths and, yes, a second AC unit in the greenhouse before next season.

“I still don’t have an air conditioner for my house,” he joked, “but my greenhouse is going to have two when I plant my seeds next year.”

Kurtenbach’s surge adds to the intrigue. He spent 19 days on a wildfire assignment and leaned on a neighbor to tend his pumpkin while he was gone, yet the fruit never stalled. With Richard on speed dial and the community pitching in, the Lovell leviathan kept packing on pounds. Whether it crosses the state-record line is the suspense of the season, but it’s already the talk of this year’s field.

The day isn’t only about pumpkins. Growers are hauling in everything oversized, from zucchinis to watermelons, and this year could be a record-setter in more than one category. Riverton’s Ron Hoffman, who took a break from giant pumpkins for the first time in a quarter century, is bringing a giant marrow that should rewrite the state mark. A heavyweight watermelon may also crash the record book. Around the scales, the fair-style footprint keeps growing, with dozens of local vendors, tractor rides, bouncy houses, and enough fudge and merch to keep the non-growers entertained between weigh-ins.

Then comes the grand finale, when science meets slapstick. Last year six pumpkins north of 1,000 pounds went airborne and splattered a wooden Wile E. Coyote. Past targets have included trucks and even an RV. This time, an outhouse draws the short straw. Richard won’t say if it’ll be “cleaned” first, which is either merciful or mischievous depending on your sense of humor. He’s also not shy about the raw physics. A friend once ran the numbers and estimated that a 1,000-pound pumpkin dropped from 175 feet hits with about 183,000 pounds of force. Add another 100 feet and you understand why the safety perimeter is expanding.

At least one of Richard’s own pumpkins will take the plunge, but the biggest bang stays in the family. Every November, one prized gourd gets packed with Tannerite and detonated for his son’s birthday.

“It’s good entertainment,” he said with a grin.

How many pumpkins will meet their fate this year? Richard won’t commit to a number, only a promise: plenty of craters, a blizzard of orange shrapnel, and everyone standing a little farther back than usual. The crane from Swing Trucking will do the heavy lifting. The rest is gravity, spectacle, and a Wyoming fall tradition that somehow finds a way to get louder every year.

“They’re going to be a long way up there,” Richard said, surveying the sky where his season’s work will turn to pulp. “What could possibly go wrong?”

The original story by Andrew Rossi for Cowboy State Daily.