By Mandy McFarland Editor
WAKARUSA — It’s big. It’s orange. It towers above traffic in Wakarusa’s center square. It’s The Great Pumpkin Tree.
The tree seemed to sprout from the pavement last Thursday, Oct. 9 as workers placed exactly 222 pumpkins on the 17-foot, specially-designed metal frame. Local preschoolers, Wakarusa Elementary students and Miller’s Merry Manor residents joined the crowd to cheer on Troy Schwartz and Pat Bailey as they wrestled the 125-pound topper onto the tree.

This is the second year for the Great Pumpkin Tree. Tom Hartman of Wakarusa and his son, Ryan, engineered the project and John Martin of Southwest Welding built it. This year’s pumpkins come from the pumpkin patch of Nate and Neil Brown of East Waterford Street. The students planted the pumpkins earlier this year on some acreage behind their house.
“It was a way for them to earn money for college and it worked out great for us,” Helen Hoffman of the Wakarusa Chamber of Commerce said.
The tree’s frame alone is heavy, but with more than 200 pumpkins it weighs a whopping 2 tons or more, Hoffman said.
The pumpkin tree is just one way for Wakarusa residents  to celebrate Halloween and harvest time.
“Harvest time is such a wonderful time to celebrate,” Doris Biller of the Wakarusa Chamber of Commerce said. “And it’s good to have something to celebrate. Wakarusa has had a lot of setbacks.”
The students gathered each received a pumpkin-shaped cookie, balloons and miniature pumpkins with face stickers.