Six Fresno State students attempt to break Guinness World Record

Six Fresno State marketing students have teamed up for a run at a Guinness World Record – for the largest free-standing paper maché structure.

The students – Heather Steven, Evyan Gallegos, Taryn Cuningham, Erica Torres, Jon Carrasco and Hana Dantic – started the project as part of a Strategic Planning in Marketing course taught by William Rice. They started making a paper maché grape in March to represent the Central Valley, Gallegos said.

Saturday afternoon, they revealed the sculpture at the annual Craft Beer Festival at ApCal in Madera.

Gallegos said the grape is 5 feet tall, 4 feet wide and 13 feet long and took a total of 5,000 hours to complete. The current Guinness record is a round structure 8 feet tall with a circumference of 12 feet.

Guinness evaluators need time to compare the grape’s dimensions to the current record and don’t expect to announce whether the Fresno State has a record until July.

This story was originally published May 13, 2017 at 9:01 PM with the headline "Six Fresno State students attempt to break Guinness World Record."