Volunteers make final preparations for Pumpkinfest

By Chris Fortune

Pumpkinfest preparations are well underway at the Pony Express National Museum, with festivities set to begin Friday night.

Around 1,100 pumpkins will sit on the mountain outside the Pony Express Museum at 914 Penn St., ready for their shining moment. It’s a four-day process carving the pumpkins — many of which were carved by students in the DECA program at Central High School.

“We started having people draw the logos, and then people carve the logos,” Pumpkinfest Executive Cindy Daffron said. “So we’ve been since Monday afternoon until today carving all the pumpkins.”

Volunteers prepped pumpkins by drilling holes behind them so Christmas lights could be placed inside.

Six volunteers from Midwest Central Outdoor came to drill and place the pumpkins on the mountain. They shut the lawn mower store down for the week to help Daffron prepare for the event.

“Usually we’re out here all day trying to help Cindy and all the other volunteers out here,” said Ernie Mitchell, Pumpkinfest volunteer and Midwest Central Outdoor worker. “Guys are working on the pumpkin mountain — that takes a lot of work.”

Many of the volunteers work long hours each day, but the reward is the joy on the faces of kids and families when the mountain lights up.

“It kind of gives a little sense of happiness to me to be out here and do this for everybody,” Mitchell said.

Food vendors and a petting zoo will be at Pumpkinfest, and a full schedule of events can be found at ponyexpress.org.

For the last three years, Daffron asked the fire department to bring one of its ladder trucks to hoist an American flag during the national anthem, which became one of her favorite activities at the event.

“We want it to be something that children understand,” she said. “The national anthem, what these things are, what it means to be an American. But what it means more than anything is to be a part of some festival, bigger than you.”

Activities will run from Oct. 4 to Oct. 6, and the pumpkin mountain will be lit at 8 p.m. Friday night.