If Cinderella’s fairy godmother needed a pumpkin for her carriage, this year’s Iowa State Fair would have offered plenty of choices. But none would have matched the 1,409-pound giant grown by Pete Caspers and his daughter Alba of Peosta — a new State Fair record.

Their pumpkin, lifted Friday, Aug. 8 by forklift and greeted with cheers in front of the Agriculture Building, easily claimed top prize at this year’s big pumpkin weigh-in — tipping the scales at a weight even heavier than this year’s Big Boar and just 11 pounds shy of the State Fair’s all-time pig record.

For the Caspers family, it was the culmination of years of near-misses and weather setbacks.

“Well, we won in 2022 but it wasn’t a record, so all we wanted today was the record,” Pete Caspers said. “It’s been pretty hard

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