The event even attracted U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot as a special guest to roll out the first pumpkin.
“It’s wonderful to be here and I hope I don’t screw this up too badly,” Chabot told the audience just before rolling his pumpkin down the hill. “I was just trying not to fall on my face.”
Cousins Jake and Browyn Dishun also enjoyed the pumpkin roll event.
“It’s fun and you can win prizes,” said Jake Dishun, a 13-year-old Franklin Junior High student. “I’ve done one or two times before. It’s fun watching the pumpkins go splat at the bottom. It’s a pretty unique event.”
Browyn, a 14-year-old student at Liberty Junior High School in Liberty Twp., agreed.
“It’s a great event to spend time with family,” she said.
And that is exactly what organizers had in mind when they took an idea they saw from a small town in Michigan and turned into the pumpkin roll.
“We made the decision that we wanted this to be family-oriented,” event organizer and fire chief Jonathan Westendorf said. “We took it up a notch from what they were doing in Michigan by adding obstacles, but we are still trying to make it better every year.”
There was plenty of other activity throughout Saturday, starting in the morning with a 5k run/walk race. There also was a costume contest, a pumpkin pie eating contest, renaissance demonstrations, live music, rides and food.
Rain washed out the event’s opening on Friday night.
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