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And now, the girl who sat in a pumpkin Mail Tribune / Bill Kettler Myray Reames sits inside the third-place prize-winning pumpkin she and her parents, Richard and Myra Reames, grew in Williams. Brothers Jerry and Brad Fuller were the first- and second-prize winners in the Mail Tribune�s annual Great Pumpkin Contest. By Bill Kettler When Myray Reames is an old woman, she can tell her grandchildren about the time she sat inside a pumpkin. The Reames family�s 92-inch squash wasn�t the biggest entry in the Mail Tribune�s Great Pumpkin Contest for 2000, but after her dad cleaned out the seeds, it was plenty big for 8-year-old Myray to crawl inside. "The whole plant grew as big as our yard," said Myray, who helped her parents tend the big squash through the summer. The two top-prize winners in this year�s contest recruited their kids� help, too, but Brad and Jerry Fuller also brought a lifetime of brotherly rivalry to the competition. "We�ve always been competitive," said Brad, 37, who lives in Merlin. "Last year Jerry said, �Let�s see who can grow the biggest pumpkin. I�ll bet you $10 I can grow a bigger pumpkin than you.�" Their pumpkins were relatively small that first summer as they learned the care and feeding of giant squash. Jerry, 39, who lives in Medford, won the bet. Brad paid him in pennies. This spring they renewed the competition and doubled the wager. Jerry won again, but the pumpkins were dramatically larger. The city brother grew a squash in his east Medford back yard that measured 140 inches (nearly 12 feet) in circumference. The country brother raised two squash in his Merlin garden that girthed out at 110 and 104 inches. "I�m a loser again," said Brad. "But I didn�t spend as much money as he did." Jerry fertilized his pumpkin regularly and fed it a daily can of beer. Brad planted his pumpkins in compost and gave them a single dose of mycorhizal fungi, microscopic soil organisms which help plants take up nutrients through their roots. "Other than that, I just watered them," said Brad. Jerry�s pumpkin earns him a $50 gift certificate at the Grange Co-op. Brad�s squash earns him $30 for second prize. The Mail Tribune faced an ethical quandary in awarding third prize. Brad Fuller�s 104-inch pumpkin was the third largest pumpkin entered in the contest. No one household has ever entered more than one giant pumpkin. The judges ruled that one prize per household is enough, and two prizes for one pair of brothers is plenty, so they awarded third prize (a $20 gift certificate) to the Reames family in Williams. Flush with success, the Fuller brothers would like to see Southern Oregon become the giant-pumpkin capital of the West Coast. They talk about organizing a larger pumpkin-growing competition and offering enough prize money to make it worth somebody�s effort to grow a 1,000-pound squash. They think the region�s long, warm summer days provide ideal growing conditions. "This pumpkin thing has escalated," Brad said. "Where we�re going with this, who knows?" Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.