Keene man trying to keep Laconia from using '25th Annual' pumpkin festival

LACONIA — While Laconia will host a pumpkin festival in October, a businessman from Keene has taken steps to prevent the city from appropriating the history recorded by the 24 pumpkin festivals held in Keene since 1991.

"They can call it anything but the 25th Annual New Hampshire Pumpkin Festival," Toby Tousley of Tousley Property Management said yesterday. Last weekend, when Tousley read reports that Let It Shine, Inc., the nonprofit corporation that has produced the event since 2011, and Ruth Sterling of Sterling Design & Communications, who manages it, announced what was billed as "New Hampshire's 25th Annual Pumpkin Festival would be held in Laconia, he thought "what the heck is this" and asked "how do they get to jump to 25?"

Tousley went on-line and, for $104, registered two trade names — New Hampshire Pumpkin Festival and Annual Pumpkin Festival — with the New Hampshire Secretary of State. On Wednesday he explained what he had done on "Good Morning," a Keene radio program broadcast on WKBK and hosted by Dan Mitchell. He said that his intent was "strictly to eliminate the deceptive purposes of taking what we built here in our city and taking it somewhere else." He wished Laconia "the best of luck" while insisting "don't call it the 25th annual pumpkin festival. It's just not right."

By immediately disclosing the trade names he registered, Tousley said he alerted organizers of the festival in Laconia, who he expected would choose an appropriate name for the event. He said he want to spare them the expense of printing materials and concessions they would be unable to use.

Tousley confessed that for several years he had expressed misgivings that what began in Keene as a local event for the entertainment and benefit of the community had drawn national sponsors like Zippo and Home & Garden Television (HGTV). "I thought they should scale it back or get rid of it," he said, adding that when the issue reached the City Council he was among those calling for discontinuing the festival. However, he said that there are residents in Keene seeking to revive the festival and insisted "if Keene wants to have it next year, that will be the 25th," he said. "I'm that proud of Keene."

Sterling could not be reached for comment yesterday. However, Karmen Gifford, executive director of the Lakes Region Chamber of Commerce, who is partnering with Sterling and Let It Shine to stage the festival in Laconia, discounted the significance of the trade names. She stressed that the issue would not distract the chamber and its partners from their goal of staging a successful festival in Laconia, whatever it is called.