STATE FAIR PARK — Labor Day commonly marks the beginning of harvest season at the Armstrong farm, where workers pick an uncommon Nebraska crop: pumpkins.
This year, the young family won't be there to watch the first pumpkin-filled semitrailers leave their farm in Brule, Neb.
They'll be nearly 300 miles away in Lincoln, accepting an Ag Family of the Day award from the Nebraska State Fair and Nebraska Farm Bureau.
"We're very excited about it and very humbled by it," Lori Armstrong said.
Lori and husband Brian, their children and his parents operate Nebraska's largest and perhaps only commercial pumpkin farm.
The business began in 1995, when Brian and his parents Darrel and Darlene Armstrong began growing pumpkins on land the family first farmed in 1941.
Today, national retailers in more than 30 states sell the Armstrongs' crops, which they market as Purty Punkins.
During peak harvest time, as many as 150 workers pick, label and package full-size and miniature pumpkins, gourds and Indian corn, Lori Armstrong said. Last year's crop filled 400 semitrailers, the largest yield in the 14 years since the business began.
In June, severe storms ruined nearly one-quarter of this year's crop. Despite that, they will harvest as usual, Armstrong said.
Earlier this year, University of Nebraska-Lincoln officials toured the Armstrongs' operation, which also includes corn, sugar beets and dryland wheat.
John Owens, vice chancellor of UNL's Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, nominated the family for the award, Armstrong said.
Cheryl Stubbendieck, a spokeswoman for the Farm Bureau, said the Armstrongs were chosen for the award because of their dedication to rural Nebraska.
"They're very entrepreneurial in the sense that they thought big," Stubbendieck said. "They just impressed us as problem solvers who said we're going to go out and make this happen.'"
Four other Nebraska families also received Family of the Day awards during this year's fair: Gary and Sarah Lambrecht of Kennard; Ben and Paula Sue Steffen of Humboldt; Bruce and Julie Rickertsen of Lexington; and Wayne and Ardyce Arnold of Shelton.
The awards are in their third year. Stubbendieck said the awards will continue in 2010, when the State Fair moves to Grand Island.