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Big bubbles no trouble for gum champ

A 10-year-old Pasco girl will appear on national TV in hopes of stretching bubblegum to championship size.

By JAMES THORNER
Published July 27, 2005

WESLEY CHAPEL - Two free nights in New York's luxurious Waldorf Astoria Hotel. A limousine tour of glittering New York nightlife. A guest appearance on national television.

Blowing bubbles has its privileges, even if your classroom teacher confiscates your pack of gum, and your dentist frets about the cavity risk.

Just ask champion bubble blower Danielle Warmke, an incoming fifth-grader at Seven Oaks Elementary School.

She's one of five finalists who'll compete live Thursday on ABC's Good Morning America to see who can inflate a wad of pink Dubble Bubble gum to its puffiest extent.

Danielle, 10, became a contestant by accident, during a June 11 shopping trip to the Wal-Mart Supercenter on Bruce B. Downs Boulevard in New Tampa. In the toy section Dubble Bubble was holding semifinals.

Danielle's 10-inch bubble, measured by official Dubble Bubble calipers, did the trick. She's off today to a two-day all-expenses trip to New York with her mother, Terry Warmke.

In Danielle's opinion, there's not much to the art of bubble blowing.

"Chew it for a few minutes, then just blow," she says as she works pieces between her jaw until it sheds its grainy, sugary consistency.

But her form is unmistakable. Wearing a pink Super Girl T-shirt, jeans and flip-flops, Danielle removes her orthodontic retainer.

Then she pulls her eyeglasses on top of her head in case the bubble breaks and glazes her glasses with pink. And she makes sure she chomps three pieces of Dubble Bubble. You can't get enough volume out of a single piece. Puff. Inhale. Puff. Inhale. Soon the bubble's as big as her head.

"At first I didn't know she could blow a 10-inch bubble," says Terry Warmke, noting that her daughter's normal chew is the nearly impossible-to-inflate Juicy Fruit. "She's been blowing up to 13 inches at home."

It could take a lot more than that to win. Last year's winner, Kelsey Lea of Conway, Ark., triumphed with a 18.5-inch bubble.

The Sixth Annual Dubble Bubble National Bubble Blowing Contest airs on Good Morning America between 7:30 and 9 a.m. Thursday.

Danielle admits she's "kind of nervous," but her mother said her nerves are more excitement than fear. "She's really excited. You just wouldn't know it," Terry Warmke says. "She's been bouncing off the walls."

[Last modified July 27, 2005, 01:04:17]