Frog Pond man hopes to reclaim melon contest for county

Will Wingo, of Frog Pond, got a little help from family friend and fellow watermelon-growing enthusiast Gene Graham ahead of this year’s Watermelon Festival.

Will Wingo watched for years as neighbors around him in the Frog Pond community spent their summers growing some of the largest watermelons in county history.
As the Grissoms and Grahams and others worked to grow the biggest melons they could for the annual Watermelon Festival contest, Wingo watched from a distance.
But during the past three or four years, Wingo noticed that the winner of the largest melon contest had come from outside the county.
“I decided to grow some this year to learn what all I needed to do, but I wasn’t really planning on growing any big enough to get into the contest this year,” Wingo said.
But as the weeks have passed, those plans changed.
Now his aim is set squarely on bringing the biggest melon title back to Franklin County.
A melon that he conservatively estimates could weigh up to 150 pounds has been pampered and cared for through this hot summer drought.
The seeds for this giant melon came from last year’s winner, which set the state record at 228 pounds. The seeds from that melon originated with the world record holder from Hope, Ark.
Throughout the summer, Wingo has been receiving help and advice from his neighbor, former county commissioner Gene Graham, who won the largest melon contest several times himself.
“Will told me that he wanted to keep the Frog Pond tradition going of growing big watermelons,” Graham said.
“We may have gotten a little slow start this year, but he has put a lot of time and work into this and I think this melon has gotten bigger than we thought it would.”
Wingo, who spends an estimated eight to 10 hours a week caring for the melons he’s grown, said the largest one grew an inch and a half in length last week alone.
“These get water every day, whether they need it not,” he said.
He also picks several melons a day off the vines to make sure all the water is going where it needs to.
For a man with a baby on the way and who stays busy at work, spending eight to 10 hours a week in the watermelon patch may seem daunting.
But for Wingo, there is a purpose behind the passion.
“All the older generations of growers have started fading out and I hated to see this tradition go away,” he said.
“If anything, I think this year I learned a lot about it and maybe folks from outside the county can take notice that we are going to get this back to Franklin County.”