The cold may have fogged memories of hot summer and a cold slice of watermelon, but don’t worry, those days will be back soon. Until then, Hope watermelon lovers can celebrate news about Lloyd Bright who is still making Hope proud with oversized watermelons.
Bright won $500 from the Hope/Hempstead County Chamber of Commerce with the biggest melon of 2009, with a 219 pound melon.
Watermelons were late with a strange season and Bright did not hit his record mark of 268 pounds, but despite the strange season, he still produced a champion melon weighing 227 pounds. It did not make the Hope contest, but it took the first place prize for $600 at the Pumpkin Days contest in Republic, Mo.
Bright said he did not pull the melons until late September and saved them for the Missouri contest. He, along with his sister, Barbara Jones, of Bossier City, La., who helps him grow the melons, entered to win first and second place in the category of largest watermelon, held on Oct. 3, according to Bright.
Jones’ second place melon weighed in at 224 pounds, but lost weight before contest time. That left it weighing in officially at 219 pounds.
“The thing that slowed them was the cloudy days. The temperature was the best it had been in years. There were spots where the growing conditions were better than usual,” Bright said. “Until Labor Day, they were ahead of the curve.”
He said they were then sprayed with fungicide and were cared for properly.
“By the end of the summer, it looked like they were going to make larger than usual,” he said.
Bright’s largest for the season was the 227 pound watermelon. The next closest to the record was a 249 pound melon grown in 2007, according to Bright.
Chamber Executive Director Mark Keith said Aubrey Goodwin, of Bodcaw, turned in the second largest watermelon for the 2009 season that weighed 100.5 pounds.
