video: Boulder, Colorado’s Halloween Naked Pumpkin Run. (It’s ecstatic barely illegal wholesome good fun)

Update: News just in! Excerpt, via Boulder’s Daily Camera.

The first of 12 runners cited for streaking on the Pearl Street Mall on Halloween night wearing nothing but pumpkins on their heads has accepted a plea agreement that prosecutors said would likely be offered to the others.

Natalie Ziemba, 20, of Boulder agreed Thursday to plead guilty to disorderly conduct, a petty offense.

She agreed to undergo six months of unsupervised probation, eight hours of community service and pay $27 in court fees. She will not be required to register as a sex offender, and her record will be cleared if she doesn’t commit any crimes for at least six months.

In a light-hearted moment, a prosecutor joked with Ziemba that a condition of her probation would also include “no contact with fruits or vegetables.”

“This was very uncharacteristic of me,” Ziemba told Boulder County Judge Thomas J.B. Reed.

Ziemba, a docent at the Fiske Planetarium and a junior at the University of Colorado majoring in women’s studies, attended court with her parents.

None of them wanted to comment about the case, but Ziemba’s attorney, former Boulder Municipal Judge Sheila Carrigan, said the plea agreement was the best option for her client.

“This is certainly the maximum that makes sense,” Carrigan said, although she said she questions the original misdemeanor charge of indecent exposure.

“The prosecution and the attention of the so-called naked-pumpkin runners is something I wonder about spending our resources on…for the rest, click here.

Photo.

The Duzer, Boulder’s Original Maverick, does it again. I was there—with 5,000 other dressed-up Boulderites waiting to see 100 dressed-down happy fools run the Mall sans anything but a big pumpkin covering their silly heads. Quotes of the Night: “Let them go! Let them go!” and “For your convenience, we have compost bins…” Only in Boulder.

Why’s Boulder’s annual Naked Pumpkin Run so fun, other than nudity, alcohol, crazy costumes and lots of friends and wild community? ‘Cause you realize, seeing 100 naked fools run about in under 10 minutes—more unearned nakedness than I’ve probably ever seen, total, ever—that nakedness while sexy isn’t necessarily sexual. It’s imperfect, miraculous, boring, lovely…human.

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