Wicomico County makes bid to attract World Championship Punkin

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Dec 13, 2004 by Sofia Kosmetatos

Ladies and gentlemen, start your - punkin chunkers?

That might just be the cry heard next November in Wicomico County, if a bid by the county's tourism officials to attract the World Championship Punkin Chunkin competition (as the sport is called) succeeds.

But before you cock an eyebrow in disbelief at the quirky sport that invites all comers and their hand-crafted machines to hurl pumpkins across the fall sky, consider that the games - held annually the first weekend after Halloween - draw tens of thousands of people each year to their home in neighboring Sussex County, Del. The weekend includes contests for pumpkin recipes and chili cook-offs.

That's 33,000 people, and their wallets, that could instead make their destination an Eastern Shore county better known as the place you drive through on the way to Ocean City.

The Millsboro, Del., farm that has hosted the competition is for sale, so chunkers are looking for a new home. Understandably, Delaware officials would rather the competition - and infusion of dollars into the local economy - stay closer to home.

One Delaware lawmaker, Republican Rep. Joe Booth of Georgetown, wants the state to buy nearly 400 acres of Sussex County land to give the event a permanent home.

But several offers have been made in Maryland, too, including a real serious one from Wicomico County, said Frank Shade, president of the Punkin Chunkin Association, the nonprofit that organizes the competition. One offer has also been made in New Jersey, he said.

A Wicomico County official coordinating the effort to bring the games to the Salisbury area did not return calls by press time.

Legend has it that punkin chunkin (fans of the sport will sneer if you call it pumpkin chunking) started 19 years ago in Sussex County, according to the Web site of the Punkin Chunkin Association. A group of men, gathered in a local blacksmith's shop, were planning an anvil- throwing contest but heard about a charity pumpkin-tossing contest. Anvils turned to pumpkins, and the rest is history.

Our dilemma is that we believe that the event originated in the county and it needs to stay here, said Shade.

But the competition is growing so rapidly that even if the championship stays in Delaware, Maryland will likely host a regional qualifying championship, probably in Wicomico County, he said.

Last year, more than 100 teams entered the three-day competition, during which the inventors of homemade contraptions like oversized slingshots, catapults and air cannons - some so big they must be disassembled and shipped in trucks - compete to see who can toss a pumpkin the farthest.

The association nets about $40,000 to $80,000 from the games, depending on attendance, Shade said. Some of the proceeds are funneled back into the community through scholarships and donations.

But the real effect on the community comes from the money that visitors spend in area hotels, stores and restaurants. That impact extends to the beach towns like Rehoboth that are less than half an hour away.

If the games come to Wicomico, Ocean City would benefit, too, as would small towns near Salisbury. And the games would attract a different clientele to the area that might not otherwise have visited and would hopefully return after the competition, said Dennis Castleman, executive director of the Maryland Office of Tourism.