You can’t escape the sound of the bell during the Sweet Corn Festival. The echoing ring transcends the chatter across the festival lot. Again and again it rings, sending the message: the corn is hot and ready.
The 78th Sweet Corn Festival, hosted by the Millersport Lion’s Club, took place from Wednesday, Aug. 27 to Saturday, Aug. 30. Each year the festival is the weekend before Labor Day and the local schools get Wednesday, Thursday and Friday off school.
The 5k kicked off the festival Saturday morning, with runners enjoying a scenic view of Buckeye Lake in the 9 a.m. sun. Towards the back of the festival lot, kids joyfully scream as the carnival rides blow wind through their hair. Surrounded by trees, families find solace in the shade.
But the main event – the reason people came to the festival – is the sweet corn.
Saturday is always the busiest day, Tamarra Parker-Stephens explained. Parker-Stephens is in charge of the sweet corn booth, and this year she had help from volunteers from New Life Christian Center in Newark.
“Usually on Saturday, we will use as much corn and butter and supplies as we have used Wednesday, Thursday and Friday,” Parker-Stephens said. “Usually in the evening, people start showing up with their rolling carts and their suitcases to fill them up with, you know, dozens and dozens of corn in the husks. They’ve already been doing that. I think we’ve gone through like 52 cases today,”
The festival kicks off each year with a parade, featuring 18 marching bands from the high schools in the area. The royalty court makes an appearance in the parade. This year’s queen was Keegan Spears, from Millersport High School. It’s the first time in eight years Miss Millersport has been selected as queen.
“The best part of all this is the feel of small town America. That’s what it is,” General Chairman Ronald Keller said.
The fairgrounds feature gravel roads, old trees, historic homes in the process of restoration and buildings that preserve the original feeling of the first sweet corn festival.
Bob Martin goes to the festival dressed as Corn. E. Cobb, and says the thing he likes most about it is that all concession booths are all run by local community groups.
No private concessions are permitted in the festival. Groups such as churches, scouts, schools and more run the food and game booths. Or sometimes, groups will volunteer to assist with general labor. This way profits are turned back into local organizations and community groups.
The festival currently has a group of over 65 non-profit charitable organizations which represent people from an eight-county area in central Ohio.
“The plan in the beginning was to create an event in which charities all around the area could come together and make most of their money and their causes and that hasn’t changed,” Keller said.
In 1946, Millersport Lions Club sponsored a festival called the “Farm Auction & Festival.” It was held on the streets of Millersport with a pick-up truck of sweet corn and an old butchering kettle. The next year, the community event became the Sweet Corn Festival.
With time, the festival moved off the street to its current location, Historic Lions Park. The pick-up truck became a semi-truck, the bingo hall converted to a beer garden and the festival grew.
Now, the corn is supplied from Michael Farms in Urbana, Ohio.
As Parker-Stephens explained, most of the corn near the festival area is dried corn, not sweet corn. Plus, without irrigated fields to prevent potential weather impacts, relying on a local provider would be risky.
She’s grateful for the partnership with Michael Farms.
“Without them we would not be able to manage our needs,” Parker-Stephens said.
The corn was hand husked until 1963 when the Millersport Lions Club purchased an antique dual lane corn husker. They use the husker to clean over 100,000 ears of sweet corn every year.
By Founders’ Commons, in the front of the festival lot Kids aged 4-11 line up ready to participate in Saturday’s Kiddie Tractor Pull. The first contestant readies himself on the track. The goal is to drive a pedal tractor and pull a weighted sled as far as they can. A full pull crosses the yellow line. The crowd, of parents and intrigued festival goers, cheer the kids on as the speed across the yellow line.
The festival also featured a corn eating contest and a corn cob toss. Friday night, the band Exile performed while Saturday closed with a performance by The Oak Ridge Boys.
Keller explains they have 11 meetings each year to plan the festival. He will take a short break before jumping right back into festival planning.
“I’m taking notes for next year already,” Keller says.
Ella Diehl writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.