photo by Laura Johnson

Big pumpkin: Sara Rollins Koon teeters on the curbwhile trying to carry a pumpkin.

Great pumpkin roll a smash for visitors

By Laura Johnson | Alex City Outlook

Published Monday, October 26, 2009

Three-year-old Kirklyn Dark sat on the curb in front of JR’s Sports Bar and Grill gripping her small pumpkin while she cheered for her big brother and sister to win the Alexander City Pumpkin Roll Saturday.

Despite being encouraged to participate by her grandmother and great aunt, she initially refused to give her pumpkin a go, vowing to save it for her mother’s birthday present.

Eventually she relented, bounced it down the hill and took second place in a round where only her cousin Kennedy Tate beat her by winning first place.

“I want to do it again and again,” she said when she went to retrieve the pumpkin from the bottom of the hill on Alabama Street. And she did.

Kirklyn, Kennedy and their cousins were just a few of the kids who came out to roll their pumpkins down the hill. They were accompanied by dozens of others at the pumpkin roll, which is in its third year.

MainStreet Alexander City organizers divided the children by age and called several rounds at the event. There were races for two and three year olds, four and five year olds, six, seven and eight year olds and those who are nine or older.

District judge Tom Young who shouted “Roll,” into a microphone before the children released the pumpkins and watched them race to the bottom.

The highlight of the event came when one pumpkin broke apart, spraying seeds and pumpkin guts into the air while it tumbled down.

“It’s just real fun seeing if it will bust or not,” Kirklyn’s older brother Dylan Dark said.

He and his sister Haley Flurry have been attending the roll for all three years but Dark said this was the first time he had ever seen a pumpkin burst.

He, his siblings and his cousins are brought each year by their grandmothers, Mona Pitts and Donna Hornsby, who bring the children together to decorate the pumpkins before each year.

“I think it’s great,” Hornsby said. “It’s a tradition with us, with these children.”

No awards were given at the race. It’s just about letting the kids play and have fun MainStreet Alexander City Executive Director, Richard Wagoner said.

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