Guinness Record

For those of you who are interested, here is the story on my new Guinness
record.
I wrote to the Guinness Prime Time TV show in August ,  telling them that I
could break the carving record of 1:37. I finally heard back from them just
after Halloween (great timing) and they were very interested, but needed an
audition tape. I had already used up all of my pumpkins so I had a bit of a
problem. Fortunately, a local pumpkin farm donated pumpkins to me (about  
thirty 25-30 pounders), enough to audition and a few to practice on. For my
audition tape, I carved three standard faces in 1:00 to 1:30 each, and then
did the Mona Lisa in 4:37, just to knock their socks off. About a week later,
they got back to me, telling me that the executive producer was "totally
blown away", so things were looking good. We went back and forth with details
up until early December, when I got the word that it wasn't going to work out
this year. So I decided I'd break the record at the School where I teach. I
got the ok from my principal, and set it up for the second week in December.
I'm not used to carving in front of a crowd, so that and the newspaper
photographers in my face took some getting used to, but I managed to crank
one out in 1:14.8, a new world record. The guinness parameters say that the
pumpkin must weigh at least 24 pounds and that it must have a standard jack o
lantern face, with eyes, ears?, nose and mouth. I don't know why it needs
ears, I don't usually put on ears, but that was the rule. I added eyebrows
because the face looks better with them and I had the time. I was also
actually a little disappointed with my time, because I can do it much faster.
It wasn't until two weeks later that someone pointed out to me that I had
forgotten to wear my glasses! Anyway, I finally got the official word from
Guinness in February and my certificate came in late March. They still
haven't changed the recoord on their web site, but they have assured me that
they will. Also, given what they told me in their last letter, I stand a
pretty good chance of getting into the 2002 edition, due out in November
2001. Thanks to those who wrote to me, I hope this answers your questions.
Also a special thanks to Beth Rado, who gave me my "big break" by setting up
the Vice Presidential pumpkin carving party in 1999.
Steve Clarke
"World's Fastest Pumpkin Carver"
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