Floyd County Stock Show: Rival Towns Sign the Pumpkin Treaty
Floydada and Lockney FFA Delegations Meet on Neutral Ground in Muncy to Divide 1,500 Bins of Unsold Halloween Pumpkins Before the Barrows Weigh In
MUNCY, Texas — After eleven hours of talks at the Floyd County Friends Unity Center, delegations from the Floydada and Lockney livestock programs on Thursday signed the Muncy Accords, a seven-article agreement governing the division, feeding and diplomatic status of what both sides now formally call the Strategic Pumpkin Reserve.
The text, released to Farm.FM with notes from the negotiating room, appears below. Observers called it the most significant agreement between the two towns since the first football game in 1917, and considerably more significant than the 105 that followed.
Preamble: Floyd County’s November Problem
The crisis is seasonal and entirely the fault of the calendar. Floydada calls itself the Pumpkin Capital of the U.S., and according to the Texas Tribune, the area grows about 50 million pounds of pumpkins a year, mostly decorative ones, which pay more per pound than the pie pumpkins grown in Illinois. At peak season, one farm ships about 1,500 bins a day.
The decorative pumpkin is worth a premium on October 31. On November 1, it is worth roughly what a Christmas tree is worth on December 26, which is to say it becomes a large orange obligation.
This year a grower offered the leftovers to the stock show as hog feed, a perfectly sound agricultural practice, and delivered them in a single afternoon to the Unity Center parking lot, which sits in Muncy, between Floydada and Lockney, and therefore belongs to neither. Both towns immediately claimed the pumpkins. Neither town has ever conceded anything to the other without a scoreboard.
The delegations, made up of FFA and 4-H members from both towns, convened the following morning. The adults present were assigned to bring coffee and were not permitted to speak.
The Muncy Accords, Articles I Through VII
Article I: Neutral Ground. The Unity Center is declared neutral territory for the duration of show week, which under the Floyd County Stockshow Association schedule opens with rabbit check-in in late December and runs through the livestock shows in early January. No Whirlwind or Longhorn colors shall be displayed inside the barn, except on show halters, ear tags, and the annual Exhibitor Dance, which both sides agreed is “outside the jurisdiction of any treaty.”
Negotiating note: The Lockney delegation proposed that neutral ground extend to the bleachers. Floydada countered that the bleachers have never once been neutral in 106 meetings and asked that the record reflect the series, which Floydada led 74 to 30, with one tie, heading into that 106th game. Lockney asked that the record reflect that it does not care to hear the series. Both requests were granted.
Article II: Partition of the Reserve. The Strategic Pumpkin Reserve, estimated at 1,500 bins, shall be divided between the two programs.
Negotiating note: Floydada initially proposed dividing the bins according to the football series. This was rejected in under four seconds. A Lockney sophomore then proposed dividing by exhibitors. She produced the most recent results list, which named 36 exhibitors from Floydada and 27 from Lockney, and calculated the split to the bin: 857 and 643. The Floydada delegation checked her math twice, found it correct, and accepted it on the condition that it not be described as “a Lockney idea” in any Floydada publication. This publication is in Muncy.
Article III: Legal Status of the Pumpkin. A pumpkin held in the Reserve is hereby classified as feed. It is no longer decor. It shall not be displayed, carved, photographed against a hay bale, or posted with any caption containing the word “cozy.”
Negotiating note: This article took three hours. A growers’ observer argued that a decorative pumpkin, some bound for displays as far away as Florida, is never merely feed. The delegations agreed to add a ceremonial phrase recognizing each pumpkin as “a decoration in honorable retirement.”
Article IV: Observer Status. Morton, Illinois, which describes itself as the Pumpkin Capital of the World, is denied observer status. The delegations acknowledged that Illinois grows more pumpkins. They noted for the minutes that Illinois mostly puts them in cans.
Article V: The Cotton Clause. The delegations formally recognize that Floyd County ranks fifth in Texas for cotton, with more than 70,000 acres in the 2022 Census of Agriculture, compared with roughly 1,500 acres of pumpkins, and that cotton has never once been invited to a festival.
Negotiating note: Article V was demanded by a cotton grower who attended uninvited, sat in the back, and said only, “Seventy thousand acres. Nobody stacks us around the welcome sign.” The Census of Agriculture profile for Floyd County supports his figures. The delegations offered him a pumpkin. He declined, then took two.
Article VI: Rabbits. Rabbit exhibitors, whose show opens the week, may draw from the Reserve first, in quantities appropriate to an animal that weighs less than the average pumpkin.
Article VII: Ratification. This agreement takes effect when the market barrows of both towns consume the Reserve.
Floyd County Stock Show Barrows Reject the Treaty
Article VII turned out to be a problem.
The swine had been eating windfall pumpkin since early November and, by the time of the treaty, had developed what a Floydada FFA member described as “a palate.” They would eat plain pumpkin. They would not eat any pumpkin that had been carved, on the grounds, the delegations concluded after observation, that it was looking at them.
Roughly a fifth of the Reserve had faces. One bin had been carved entirely with surprised faces, and four barrows backed away from it in formation.
The delegations reconvened at 9 p.m. and adopted Amendment One, written jointly by the two sides on the back of a feed tag: carved pumpkins would be turned face-down. The barrows accepted this. The Reserve was consumed by the time of the swine weigh-in, and the treaty entered into force with no penalties called, one sore loser, and approximately 400 pounds of seeds on the floor of the Unity Center that no one has claimed and both towns have disowned.
What Remained, and Who Keeps It
One pumpkin was left. It was a 61-pound Big Max, uncarved and therefore eligible to be eaten, which no barrow would touch, possibly out of respect.
Neither delegation would let the other have it. After a final round of talks, both sides agreed it would alternate custody each year, traveling with the football bragging rights, and that it would be listed in the rivalry records as a permanent entry.
The Floyd County record books will therefore show the series as Floydada 74, Lockney 30, and Pumpkin 1. Both towns believe this finally explains the tie.
Five Humorous Observations About Texas 4-H Livestock Shows
- A decorative pumpkin is worth a premium on Halloween and nothing on November 1. That’s the only crop in Texas with a worse resale curve than a show steer the day after the sale.
- Two towns that have played 106 football games needed a building named Unity in a town in between just to be in the same room with a pumpkin. That’s not a rivalry. That’s a border.
- The Lockney sophomore did the division to the bin and Floydada had to accept it. Somewhere an ag teacher is framing that long division and hanging it over the feed room door.
- Seventy thousand acres of cotton, fifth in Texas, and the grower still ends up asking a pumpkin for recognition. In Floyd County even the cotton has to stand in line behind a gourd.
- The pigs wouldn’t eat anything with a face. Show swine have stronger personal boundaries than most adults at the Exhibitor Dance, and better posture.