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Daisy Magana, 11, won a $250 prize for her poster of the Santa Paula Rotary Faulkner Farm Pumpkin Patch, which will be used to help promote this year’s event, held each weekend in October. |
Daisy Magana a top winner of Rotary Pumpkin Patch Poster Contest
July 06, 2012
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula News
A Santa Paula 5th grader who loves the Santa Paula Rotary Faulkner Farm Pumpkin Patch & Harvest Festival will now see her art be part of the fun. Daisy Magana, an 11-year-old 5th grade student at Barbara Webster Elementary School, received a check for $250 at a recent Rotary meeting she attended with her mother Marigel Magana and uncle Jesus Medina.
This is the first year of holding a competition for budding artists, and with two top prizewinners whose works will separately grace both the event’s poster and postcards.
Past Rotary President Ginger Gherardi said it was a pleasure not only to present Daisy with her prize, but also to report that the club’s first very first Pumpkin Patch Poster Contest drew hundreds of entries. “We have a stack about that high,” Gherardi demonstrated by holding her hands about a foot apart.
The art competition was open to students in grades kindergarten through 12th. “We decided to do it differently than in the past, and instead of having a professional create our poster we decided to have the contest... and when we received so many wonderful entries we decided to award two prizes.”
Brandon Lopez, a Santa Paula High School student, also was awarded $250. But, said Gherardi, he was out of the area and unable to attend the Rotary lunch meeting.
Gherardi noted that, with so many entries, a portion of the Agricultural Display area at this year’s Pumpkin Patch will be used to display all the entries.
Yet to be determined is what prize-winning artwork will be used on the poster and postcard. Gherardi said graphic artist Patti Fallini will make that decision, based on the suitability for superimposing the text related to the Pumpkin Patch.
Daisy’s picture is a perfect example of what people can see and do at the Pumpkin Patch, with its acres of pumpkins, red barns and a little girl resembling the artist herself enjoying the view while her own special pumpkin rests on a nearby bale of hay.
A Ventura County tradition, the annual Pumpkin Patch is held at the University of California Hansen Agricultural Center (the famous Faulkner Farm) in Santa Paula at the intersection of Briggs and West Telegraph roads. Pumpkin Patch is held each weekend in October, where building memories of good old-fashioned family fun and promoting agricultural education has been a long-standing tradition of the event, which draws visitors from throughout Southern California.
There’s plenty of food, fun and sunshine at the annual Pumpkin Patch, which also includes the Channel Islands Gourd Society, a Country Store and Farmers Market for local produce, unique gifts, and holiday items. The Master Gardeners offer gardening tips, and there are fee hay rides, climbs on the Hay Pyramid, Corn Maze, hay maze and nonstop musical entertainment.
There is a nominal charge for the Mini Train Ride, pony rides, petting zoo, face painting and - everybody’s favorite - Pumpkin Chucker.
Decorate your home for the fall with a variety of great harvest fare. Faulkner Farm has a bountiful crop of pumpkins, gourds, squash and cornstalks in a large array of sizes so you can bring that harvest spirit home.
Admission is only $5, and the Pumpkin Patch will be open Saturdays and Sundays only in October (6-7, 13-14, 20-21 and 27-28) from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. For more information, visit the website: http://www.faulknerfarmpumpkinpatch.com.
