Oklahomans make Guinness record book
BY MATT GLEASON World Scene Writer
Monday, December 07, 2009
12/07/09 at 8:18 AM
Carrie Underwood graces the cover of "The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2010," along with Chicago White Sox hurler Mark Buehrle and President Barack Obama.
Underwood's a glamorous country superstar from Checotah, Buehrle pitched a perfect game, and Obama moved into a white house.
But did any of them make an 839-gallon cup of lemonade big enough to set a new Guinness World Record and land one of them in this year's "Ripley's Believe It or Not! Seeing is Believing" book?
Nope, that honor goes to 40-year-old Arthur Greeno, who owns the Tulsa Chick-fil-A on 71st Street, where Greeno helped make that whopping cup of lemonade in August 2008.
"To make the drink," according to the Ripley's book, "11,730 lemons were hand-squeezed, yielding 145 gallons of lemon juice, which was added to more than 1,000 pounds of sugar, 250 pounds of ice and 580 gallons of water."
Looking back on the feat, Greeno recently said it was all about "the wow factor" and wasn't just about breaking a record.
"We sold all the lemonade," he said of the drink sold for a minimum of $10 a gallon, "and we gave (more than $10,000) to the Little Light House."
By the way, Greeno plans to set a new world record this summer when he makes a 1,500 gallon cup of sweet tea.
On page 139 of the Ripley's book, Greeno's humongous cup of lemonade joins the likes of chocolate-wrestling, gourmet raw rat meat and Fredric J. Baur, who invented the Pringles chip tube and asked his own ashes be buried in one of those tall cans.
Greeno isn't the only Oklahoman featured in the Ripley's book. He's joined by Mike Wallis of Warner, who, according to the book, "built a steel fishing rod 83 feet long with a fully-functioning reel."
By the way, that's about the length of two school buses.
Matt Gleason 581-8473
matt.gleason@tulsaworld.com
Associated Images:
Mayor Kathy Taylor helps Chick-Fil-A owner and operator Arthur Greeno prepare the last of the record-setting lemonade. Tulsa World file
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