Brad Rogers recently brought his friend Stephan Gleich of Landau, Germany by the Hope/Hempstead County Chamber of Commerce. Rogers worked with his father, the late C.M. "Pod" Rogers when the elder Rogers founded the modern Watermelon Festival in 1977. Gleich attends a University in Germany and also serves on a volunteer fire department. Here, he and Rogers pose with a replica of one of the Bright family's giant melons.