Chewelah smashes jack-o-lantern world record

The town of Chewelah smashed the record established by Irvine, California, last year for the most lighted jack-o’-lanterns, assembling 1,951 of the glowing gourds on the chilly streets Saturday evening.

Tom Bristol, president of the Chewelah Arts Guild, is pleased that his small town of 2,600 bested the more-than 200,000 people living in Irvine, who assembled 1,510 pumpkins last year.

“I think the town’s feeling pretty good about itself,” he said.

Each pumpkin had to have a mouth, nose, eyes and eyebrows. Bristol said volunteers were standing by to add eyebrows to any pumpkin that came in without them. The pumpkins stretched more than 1,600 linear feet once assembled.

All that’s left now is to send their documentation to the Guinness Book of Records and await official word on whether they have broken the record.

“We had to take pictures of every pumpkin and video them,” Bristol said.

Everyone had so much fun that the event, which also included a scavenger hunt and a festival, may become an annual gathering, Bristol said. But future jack-o’-lantern events probably would have less emphasis on numbers, Bristol said.

“We may focus more on creativity than eyebrows,” he said.