By DUANE SCHRAG

Salina Journal

Verne Hubalek eased the massive pumpkin onto the scale and straightened up.

Fifty-one and a half pounds.

"I guess that's the only one I'm going to do that to," he muttered under his breath.

Indeed. It was the smallest entry in the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth, an event built around what organizers refer to as a hobby/sport: pumpkin growing.

Hubalek, who with his wife, Linda, own the Smoky Hill Bison Co. farm near Assaria, hosted the Kansas chapter of the GPC event Saturday.

The winner: an 880-pound behemoth that was gingerly raised and lowered with a skid loader. It was grown by Doug Heathman, Liberal. He's been growing monster pumpkins just four years and would have won at the Kansas State Fair this year (he entered one what weighed 871 pounds) had it not been for a 976-pound entry by Brian Stanley, Newton.

Stanley was expected to win the Kansas GPC title this year but didn't show up Saturday: vandals smashed that pumpkin and another even larger one this week (see related story).

Heathman's winning pumpkin is a variety known as Atlantic Giant and grows with remarkable speed.

"That one put on 35 pounds in one day," Heathman said. "Instant gratification. Every day, you get to see it grow."

Tammie Heathman, his wife, says the question they get asked the most is, How many pies?

"We have no earthly idea," she said.

The pumpkins take a lot of water -- a soaker hose runs nonstop as it nears maturity. And it consumes vast quantities of nutrients.

"We buy a lot of compost," she said.

The plan right now is to turn the champion pumpkin into one impressive Halloween prop.

"If it lasts, it will be a jack-o-lantern," Heathman said.

n Reporter Duane Schrag can be reached at 822-1422 or by e-mail at dschrag@salina.com.