Pumpkin saga ends April 2 with winners named

Nearly six months after the Great Pumpkin made its first appearance on the spire of Cornell's McGraw Tower, the masterful prank will be brought to a suitably ceremonial close on Thursday, April 2, at noon in the Memorial Room of Willard Straight Hall.

A scientific analysis of the "object" removed from the spire on March 13 will be presented by Dominick Paolillo, chair of the Section of Plant Biology, which will be the final word on whether this was a real fruit or just a fake.

Then the winner of the undergraduate competition, sponsored by Provost Don M. Randel to analyze the contents of the object, will be announced by William Streett, professor emeritus of chemical engineering. The winner or winning team will receive an autographed, framed lithograph of Charles Schulz's cartoon "The Great Pumpkin," a check for $250 to buy a semester's worth of books, a Cornell pumpkin T-shirt and a video with episodes from the life of the McGraw pumpkin. The runners-up will receive a T-shirt and the video.

The object itself will be on view during the ceremony.