County agrees to assist with funding for giant pumpkin contest

This October, Breckenridge local Ryan Ethridge hosted the inaugural Giant Pumpkin Contest and was assisted by Jessie Shortes of Stephens County 4-H for the event. Now, with help from the Stephens County Commissioners Court, the contest is looking to grow even bigger–along with the pumpkins.

The first edition of the pumpkin contest in Breckenridge saw a state weight record, as Brownfield resident Gabriel Gonzales grew a pumpkin that weighed in at 995 pounds, verified by the Indiana Pumpkin Growers Association. The astonishing weight surpassed the previous Texas record by 284 pounds.

The second place pumpkin of 387 pounds and third place pumpkin of 71 pounds were each grown in Breckenridge, while there were a total of 15 entries for the first contest.

Organizers are looking to hold the event every October, and hope to expand marketing outreach for next year to get more contestants signed up from across the state.

“Our advertising is not near where it should be. We’re kind of playing with it so our entries were low, which we expected for the year,” Ethridge said.

The commissioners court agreed to contribute $5,000 of their capital credits in the cash account towards funding the prize money for the contest. County Judge Michael Roach noted at their meeting Monday, Nov. 24 that the county can’t donate directly to the sponsorship, but were able to contribute.

“The marketing side, or helping you with the prize money and that sort of thing we can do. But actually sponsoring, there’s a line there,” Roach said. “...The language of the statute allows us to participate, but not directly cut checks for scholarships.”

Roach said that the funds would be to help with overhead expenses, and whatever funds raised from the contest would be contributed to Stephens County 4-H.

“So we’d still be helping, but not directly,” Roach said. “So what I’m saying is that you couldn’t take that money from the county and then write checks to 4-H places.”

Following the court’s approval, Roach said that there will be a memorandum of understanding drafted showing how the money from the county has to be allocated.

“Then what we’d like to do is…a follow-up afterwards to say, ‘Here’s what we did, here’s how many people we had in Stephens County and here’s the participation from the outside,’” he said. “That kind of gives us an idea of what the money was used for and the impact it had.”

Ethridge stated that the money would be used for the purpose of guaranteeing prize money.

“That way we could actually get people to enter the contest, because if you don’t guarantee anything it would be kind of hard to get more people,” he said. “If you have a guaranteed first prize, then they’re coming.

Ethridge added that they will begin advertising for the event at the beginning of 2026 and contestants can start growing in April. Because the pumpkins take about 90 to 120 days to mature and 60 days to set, it would be about a five to six months process.

He also said that they have the equipment required to be able to move the pumpkins around, which people have donated the money for, as well as for the scales to weigh the pumpkins.

Ethridge said that he and Shortes had talked about hosting the contest at the Stephens County Ag Barn, because she can put the AgriLife stamp on it and host it there for free as there would be no overhead cost.

“She’s going to be a big help this year,” Ethridge said. “She was a big help last year too, but like I said my marketing skills are not very good so I don’t think I was getting it out there as much as I should. But this year, I’ve got a lot of people helping me.”