11-year-old Georgia boy grows prize-winning watermelon twice his weight

APPLING COUNTY, Ga. — An 11-year-old Georgia boy is celebrating a state championship victory after he grew a watermelon that tipped the scales at twice his own weight.

Aiden Connell of Baxley won the Georgia 4-H competition for largest watermelon of 2021. His monstrous melon that took the top prize weighed 160 pounds and measured half as tall as the boy who grew it.

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Aiden beat out 30 other children in Appling County. The second place winner’s watermelon came in at 106 pounds.

“Appling County tore the watermelon contest up, didn’t they?” one parent said.

Aiden has been growing watermelons for the past three summers and entering them in local 4-H competitions. But he told WTOC-TV he had no idea his largest would win a $100 grand prize.

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“I didn’t know what it was going to do,” he said. “I knew it might win county, but I didn’t think we would win state.”

Aiden said he plans to open up the first-place fruit and save its seeds as he plans for next year.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report

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