Great Pumpkin, Rex, on display at Olympia fruit stand

When Danny Mollas first saw Rex, he thought there was no way the 800-pound pumpkin was real.

“I pulled up early in the morning, and I thought, ‘That has to be fake,’ ” Mollas said. “It was almost too big to believe.”

But upon further inspection, he confirmed that the large, misshapen, orange squash was indeed real. Rex is, as Mollas said, 800 pounds of pure pumpkin — albeit a little lopsided.

Rex came to George and Son’s Fruit Stand, 427 Lilly Road SE, on Wednesday. It was grown on a local farm, by a long-time friend of Mollas’ father, George. Mollas said the farmer planted Rex not long after his brother was diagnosed with cancer. When the brother died, the farmer decided to let the pumpkin keep growing, and growing, and growing.

Mollas said that when Rex rots, its remains will go on to support cancer research. He said he’ll collect and sell Rex’s seeds, with the proceeds going to Relay for Life.

“He’s going to be here for as long as he wants to be here,” Mollas said of Rex. “We’re thinking he’ll expire sometime in January, then we’ll collect the seeds.”

But for now, Mollas said he hopes people will stop by the stand, visit Rex and garner a little happiness from looking at a giant pumpkin.

This story was originally published October 3, 2015 at 5:43 PM with the headline "Great Pumpkin, Rex, on display at Olympia fruit stand."