Milan Lukes poses with his weigh-off winning pumpkin

The 25th anniversary of the Roland Pumpkin Fair took place Saturday in the community of a few hundred located about ten minutes north of Winkler. As an official Great Pumpkin Commonwealth competition, participants from across Southern Manitoba and beyond bring their giant pumpkins and other vegetables to the event to find out who has the biggest in all the land.

Saturday's weigh-off was special for a number of reasons: It was the 25th anniversary event, one of the largest pumpkins ever entered won, and I'm pretty sure the youngest ever winner had the largest pumpkin entered.

13 year old Winnipegger Milan Lukes went home with top prize for his 1,348.2 pound monster. Oh, and did I mention he also came in second place with a 1,283.4 pound entry.

The top five included multi-time winner Henry Banman of Schanzenfeld in third, Cornie Banman of Schanzenfeld in 4th and Doug Whitehead of Roland in fifth.

Golden West Radio's Ronny Guenther spoke with Milan shortly after he found out he was the “Big” winner.

A lot has changed at the Roland Pumpkin Fair over the years, but one of the most noticeable is the size of the pumpkins. Organizer Art Cameron tells us in that first year the biggest entries were in the 400 to 500 pound range, and now we are pushing almost 1,000 pounds more than that.