Rich Hill pie sets Guinness record

By James R. Campbell

Nevada Daily Mail

RICH HILL -- When organizers of Rich Hill's "Famous for the Fourth" of July Celebration have a pie auction, they heat up the stove and start cooking.

They had learned last year, when local farmer Jerry Mumma paid $2,600 for his granddaughter Jara's Betsy Ross Strawberry Rhubarb, that they would have made history if Guinness World Record guidelines had been followed to verify the highest price ever paid for a pie at auction.

So this year they documented the event with two photographers, three statisticians, two video cameras and three ringmen to record the bids.

With a $3,100 offer, Mumma (pronounced Moo-maw) bested Bud Fillpot of Rich Hill's $3,000 offer for Jara's banana peanut butter pie and apparently beat the current worldwide standard of 1,250 pounds, or $1,942 at the current exchange rate, auctioneer Larry Hacker said.

"The word got out this time and one of our official witnesses counted 500 to 600 people early during the auction," Hacker said Thursday, adding that it should be about a month before the Guinness World Records organization sends an official notification from London, England.

"We had twice as many pies and three times the crowd we had last year," the auctioneer said. "It got an awful lot of attention. Stories have come out in the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune."

Pie Contest Chairwoman Debbie Bradley of the sponsoring Security Bank of Rich Hill said the 7 p.m. contest and 7:30 p.m. auction July 6 in Round Park ran late and did not conclude until well after sundown. "People made pies who had never made them and people bought them who had never bought one," she said.

"I hope it carries over into next year."

Bradley noted Thursday that 48 pies were sold, compared to 25 in 2011, with the total proceeds of $10,475 to be applied to next year's celebration.

She said top winners in the contest, which had five judges, were Karen Copsey of Rich Hill, first with a strawberry pie; Brandi Bloomfield of Prescott, second with a fresh strawberry concoction; and Teresa Copsey of Rich Hill, third with a cheesecake. The pie made by Jara Mumma, a Rich Hill High School senior, did not place.

Rich Hill, population 1,500, is 21 miles north of Nevada in south central Bates County. Natalie Hoeper chaired the four-day celebration, which ended July 7 with a concert in the park by the Kentucky Headhunters country-rock band of Glasgow, Ky.