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Hey, sourpuss, pucker up Mail Tribune / Steve Johnson Ryan Johnson, left, of Phoenix was a preliminary winner in the pucker contest at the Talent Wal-Mart, sponsored by the makers of the very sour candies Mega Warheads. A year�s worth of free Warheads was the prize at the contests, conducted at stores nationwide. Other sourpusses included Danny Kuykendall and Ryan Kuykendall of Medford. All the boys are 14. Kids put on their game faces for the judge to win extra-tart candy By Bill Varble How sour is a Mega Warheads sour candy? Very sour. Think lemon sucking and then some. It�s enough to make you pucker up. Which is exactly why these kids are putting their tastebuds on the line Saturday. Seven candy suckers are taking part in this round, facing pucker judge Betty Vandarwarka at the Talent Wal-Mart store, Mega Warheads candies in hand and at the ready. "Go!" Vandarwarka commands. Forget the Olympics. Welcome to the Mega Warheads Pucker Contest. The event took place at Wal-Marts all over the United States Saturday. The object of the promotion, sponsored by The Foreign Candy Co., the Iowa company that imports the sour candy from Taiwan, is to find the perfect pucker. The company doesn�t downplay the sour factor. Far from it. "If you�ve never tasted a Mega Warheads candy, I must warn you," says company founder Peter De Yager. "Putting one in your mouth is an assault on the senses. Bravery is required." Piece of cake to these guys. "You mean we have to make a face?" asks Travis Kuykendall, 13, of Medford, sucking on one of the cough-drop-size candies. Not to worry. Puckered faces happen. "Yummy," says a passing toddler. "Oh, no," says the man the tyke has in tow. "Are we done yet?" Travis Kuykendall asks. "Keep puckering," Vandarwarka says. "They�re kind of sour at the beginning," says 14-year-old Danny Kuykendall. "But they have a sweet flavor at the end," says Ryan Kuykendall, also 14. In fact, he says the things aren�t really so bad. "They�re not good for school candy, though," he says. "If you�re trying to hide that you�re eating something, you can�t." Promotion people in each Wal-Mart store take photos of puckered-up kids, and the winning puckerer at each of 2,600 stores gets a year�s supply of the sour candy. The winner in this preliminary round is Ryan Johnson, 14, of Phoenix. Vandarwarka, who is retired, says she does demonstrations for Wal-Mart. "As long as I do all my volunteer stuff, I may as well do something I get paid for," she says. Does she eat the candy? "I put a blue one in my mouth," she says, laughing. The things come in 10 flavors. The sourness is intense at first but lasts less than a minute. Details are sketchy on just how much of the stuff equals a year�s supply. Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA