Pumpkin queen
Encyclopedia
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
or a real person
Person
A person is a human being, or an entity that has certain capacities or attributes strongly associated with being human , for example in a particular moral or legal context...
associated with a variety of beauty contests held in North America.
A fictional pumpkin queen serves as the basis (and title character!) of a webisode (Episode #6: "Curse of the Pumpkin Queen") that can be seen online at 8Legged Entertainment. "The Great Queen Pumpkin" served as a major character in the film Curse of Halloween. In R. L. Stine's Haunting Hour: Don't Think About It, "Priscilla is crowned Pumpkin Queen." Recently, Marlane Kennedy published the book Me and the Pumpkin Queen
Me and the Pumpkin Queen
Me and the Pumpkin Queen is a 2007 children's book by Marlane Kennedy and published by Greenwillow Books, An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers. The book's subject is inspired by Kennedy's youthful familiarity with the Circleville Pumpkin Show. The book has been chosen as a Junior Library Guild...
.
A longer-standing tradition of more than a half dozen pumpkin shows and festivals in various American states are pageants to determine the show or festival's Pumpkin Queen. While this tradition goes back to at least the 1930s, usage of the title "Pumpkin Queen" has increased dramatically after 2000. Many of these shows and festivals have attendance figures in at least the tens and in some cases hundreds of thousands, a number of who come to see the crowning of the show or festival's new "Queen." These ladies usually also participate in some kind of major parade associated with their respective festival or show. Pumpkin Queens from the more prominent shows and festivals also attend other food festivals and parades in their states while serving as representatives of their respective pumpkin festival or show. These ladies also receive a good deal of local and in some cases regional media attention and are representative of a well-established autumnal tradition in North America and possibly elsewhere. Information and products associated with the many pumpkin queens have appeared throughout the World Wide Web and even on such prominent sites as eBay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
.
Major Festivals and Shows
The Circleville Pumpkin ShowCircleville Pumpkin Show
The Circleville Pumpkin Show is an annual festival held in Circleville, Ohio. The festival, which is held to celebrate local agriculture, is headed up by the Circleville Pumpkin Show Corporation. Considered to be the biggest festival dedicated to pumpkins in the United States, it is billed as The...
, the oldest and arguably most prestigious pumpkin show with some kind of a Miss Pumpkin Show contest, has been held annually since 1903 (except during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
). Other notable pumpkin shows and festivals featuring contests in which winners can become pumpkin queens include Confluence PumpkinFest (2003–2006), Danbury Pumpkin Harvest (1966), Huntsburg Pumpkin Festival, 2006: Huntsburg Pumpkin Festival Queens The Barnesville
Barnesville, Ohio
Barnesville is a village in Belmont County, Ohio, United States. It is part of the Wheeling, West Virginia Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 4,225 at the 2000 census...
Pumpkin Festival (1964–2006), The Bradford Pumpkin Show (-2006), The Halloween Pumpkin Princess Tea and Pageant (1965–2007), The Spring Hope National Pumpkin Festival (1971–2006), The Versailles Pumpkin Show (1902–2005), The West Virginia Pumpkin Festival (1985–2006), and Tioga Pumpkin Festival (2006).