A farmer in Fountain Valley, Colo., Venetucci grew vegetables, including pumpkins, which he liked to call “punkins.”
In 1951, he was driving his produce to market when “I noticed that whenever I’d drive up the street with that truck loaded with those bright orange punkins, all these kids would look and their old eyes would bulge out,” he once said. “So one day I just decided to park the darn truck on the street and give a punkin to every kid that come along. Every kid goin’ down the street was carryin’ a punkin.”
The next year, a teacher asked if she could bring her students to his farm to see what a pumpkin patch looked like, and he said yes — and let them all have a punkin. He kept it up every year after that, letting any child who showed up get a free squash to carve into a Jack-o-Lantern for Halloween. Venetucci had to dedicate 50 acres to growing them all, continuing the effort long past retirement. Those touched by Venetucci’s efforts donated $100,000 to have a statue of him created for the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum, and a school in town was named after him. He died September 7 at age 93.