(Photo by Russ Mitchell) Members of the Clay County Sheriff's Department are asking for help in connection with a pumpkin patch vandalism four miles east of Spencer. About 1,000 pumpkin plants were destroyed at the Hawk Valley Garden.

Daily Reporter Staff

This year, Charlie Brown won't be waiting for the Great Pumpkin -- he'll be looking for suspects.

A $200 reward is available for information that leads to the arrest of the person or persons responsible for a vandalism at the Hawk Valley Garden, about 4 miles east of Spencer.

Sometime between the hours of 8 p.m. Tuesday and 5:30 a.m. Wednesday, someone went onto the property at 2670 Highway 18 and uprooted about 1,000 pumpkin plants.

"We lost our entire crop," said Sue Loring who has spent three previous growing seasons working on the pumpkin patch with her husband, Bruce and their two teenagers. "This year we had 33 kinds of pumpkins and I had 28 kinds of squash and 14 different kinds of gourds and every single one is gone. My crop here is wiped out."

The family grows larger varieties of pumpkins for the Clay County Fair in September, but this year's promising exhibits were chopped up by the trespasser. The family can see the footprints of the vandal, who went from row to row. Other crops were left untouched.

"It was somebody who wanted to make some kind of a statement that they could ruin our crops and they did," Loring said, later adding, "They were just out to do the pumpkins because they knew what that meant."

The Lorings start planting in early May and will have to wait for next spring to resume field work at the pumpkin patch as a result.

"It is a lot of work and the seeds are rather expensive because we order just to get the hybrid seeds," Loring said. "And with all the work we've done to it -- it's painful."

The family will get additional pumpkins from a relative who also grows the crop. A 4-H chapter in the Laurens area also supplies pumpkins for the Hawk Valley stand.

The Lorings will proceed as usual with the tradition of opening the Hawk Valley pumpkin stand during the first weekend of the fair.

"This is not going to close my stand," Loring said. "We're still going to open the first weekend of the fair like we always do. This is not going to totally put us under -- I'm not going to let it."

* Anyone with information is asked to contact the Clay Co. Sheriff's Office at (712) 262-3221.