Seed-spitter licks the competition

Aug. 13—Jose Armenta won the watermelon seed spitting contest at the Baker County Fairgrounds Wednesday afternoon, Aug. 10, even though nobody at the contest knew exactly how far his seed went.

That's because he spit the seed farther than the contest's official tape measure could reach.

The tape measure was 25 feet, and his seed — a tiny, black, saliva-soaked projectile that cut through the hot August afternoon air — hit the concrete and trickled a few inches past that mark.

Baker County Fair intern Kylie Siddoway, who organized the event, said Armenta's winning seed came from a watermelon courtesy of Val's Veggies, who donated six melons for the event.

Siddoway set up a seed-spitting venue on the concrete path just north of the volleyball courts at the fairgrounds.

She marked the resting place of each seed with blue chalk and recorded its distance from the starting line — except for Armenta's seed, which traveled a distance she simply labeled "Jose."

Contestants filtered over from the nearby volleyball tournament and signed up into three age groups: junior, intermediate and senior.

Armenta won the senior division and the overall competition.

Despite his victory that afternoon, Armenta said he had no real strategy coming into the contest and no prior experience in competitive watermelon seed spitting.

Or any competitive seed spitting.

Armenta received a $5 gift card to Charley's Ice Cream as a prize. Among 12 competitors at the event, two other competitors — Colton Luschen and Kody Roberts — also won their respective age groups and received gift cards with distances of 241 and 117 inches, respectively.

Luschen also said he had no prior experience in competitive watermelon seed spitting, but that he was a seasoned competitive watermelon eater, a skill he put on display by devouring a handful of extra watermelon slices in only a few moments as the contest came to a close.