THE PRESIDENT AND THE PUMPKIN KING:

Bush stop a coincidence? Farmer's glad either way (BILL MCKELWAY, October 21, 2006, Richmond TIMES-DISPATCH)

So, was Bill Gallmeyer, like his pick-your-own pumpkins, handpicked?

"I have no idea," said the ruddy-faced pumpkin king of eastern Henrico County.

Gallmeyer, who is closing in on 70 and loves listening to Rush Limbaugh in the cab of his 20-year-old F-350 pickup truck, told President Bush on Thursday, "You are my hero."

He seems likely to have crossed the photo-op crosshairs of political strategy in a too-close-to-call campaign for the U.S. Senate.

"I was as shocked to see my picture in the paper as I was to see the president," Gallmeyer said yesterday.

He was summoned to his pumpkin stand Thursday afternoon, moments before a serpentine convoy of motorcycles and limousines squealed to a stop at Gay Avenue and Millers Lane, a few blocks from the Interstate 64 and Laburnum Avenue interchange.

Though the Gallmeyer family has occupied the spot for more than 100 years, it is not exactly on the way from the airport to down- town Richmond. Unless you need a pumpkin and know where to look.

"Thina calls me from the counter to come down there because you won't believe it, but the president is coming," Gallmeyer recalled, referring to his wife.

So he went.