Titanic tuber
The Big Idaho Potato Truck will be stopping at the Alpine Club Lanes parking lot April 20 to benefit Transitional Paths to Independent Living.
This was Christine Sheppard’s idea, and it wasn’t half-baked.
“She saw the truck on TV and thought it would be a good way to promote your town,” said Chad Underkoffler, Sheppard’s colleague at Transitional Paths to Independent Living, a licensed care provider that, until last week, was Tri-County Patriots for Independent Living.
“This is so bizarre,” he added, “but why not? People love strange.”
Strange, in this instance, is an oversized potato on wheels. The titanic tuber is the main feature of the Big Idaho Potato Truck, a brown, oblong, six-ton novelty wedged between two mini-trailers. The entire tractor-trailer, it seems, is as long as Rhode Island is wide.
No, the potato is not real, but it is a heck of a replica – and will be soon rolling into Washington.
The spectacular spud will be at the Alpine Club Lanes parking lot, along Jefferson Avenue, for a fundraiser April 20 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sheppard contacted officials of the Famous Idaho Potato Tour about recruiting the truck to help TRPIL secure funding to complete its intracity relocation – from 69 E. Beau St. to the former YMCA building on West Maiden Street.
A potato patron who chips in $1 can sign his or her name on a truck poster board. Photos are encouraged – and who would decline the opportunity?
TRPIL also requested that the truck assist in another upcoming event: promoting its 5K Walk*Run*Roll fundraiser April 29 at South Strabane Community Park. TRPIL’s Joann Naser is in charge of the capital campaign related to the organization’s relocation.
The truck tour readily complied through its aptly named charitable program, “A Big Helping.”
Underkoffler said Sheppard, an information and referral specialist, tried to recruit the potato truck for last year’s Walk*Run*Roll event at Mingo Creek County Park.
“But the truck couldn’t make it to Mingo, with all the curves in the road,” said Underkoffler, an independent living specialist/information management and marketing.
Sheppard wasn’t fried over that, though, and was gratified that Washington was on the 2017 tour list.
“They contacted me at the beginning of the year and confirmed that they can come to our town,” Sheppard said in an email.
The Big Idaho Potato Truck is the cornerstone of the Idaho Potato Commission’s marketing program. It launched in 2012, as part of the IPC’s 75th anniversary, and has been to all 48 states in the continental United States. (Geography precludes Hawaii and Alaska as likely destinations.)
In addition to weighing 12,130 pounds, the potato is 28 feet long, 12 feet wide and 11 1/2 feet tall, and took about a year to build.
Although the main attraction is not a true tater, bigidahopotato.com has provided a big helping of fun facts about what a real one this size would entail:
• Its 12,130 pounds are equal to 32,346 medium-sized Idaho potatoes.
• The heaviest potato ever grown weighed 11 pounds.
• It would take more than 10,000 years to grow and nearly three years to bake.
• It would yield either 30,325 servings of mashed potatoes or about 1.5 million average-sized french fries.
Washington will be the sixth stop on the sixth annual tour, which began Saturday. The finale will be Nov. 4, at the Veterans Day parade in Boise, Idaho.
The potato truck – actually, the faux potato itself – should feed the curiosity of local onlookers. But they’ll have to do without ketchup, butter or gravy.