By JOLENE CRAIG
Ohio Correspondent

MARIETTA, Ohio — Nearly 6,000 ears of corn were roasted, buttered, sold and eaten during the second annual Marietta Sweet Corn Festival July 17-18.

 “All of the corn is homegrown at (Witten Family Farm) near Beverly on Ohio (Highway) 60,” said Carrie Makris, manager of Witten Farm Market.

Witten donated all of the corn prepared and sold at the two-day festival held on Front Street, at Armory Square. “We decided to donate last year and this year because it is a way for us to be more involved in the community,” she said. “It also helps show people how much agriculture is in the mid-Ohio Valley.”

Glenn Newman and his wife, Karen VanCamp, helped organize and found the event last year as a way to bring families into downtown Marietta.

“The idea of having this festival was based around having something for families and children to do,” Newman said. “It really is a nostalgic throwback to the festivals we went to as children.”
Free admission to the festival and the donation of corn by Witten allowed costs to be low to families. “I brought all three of my grandkids because it seemed like something fun and very affordable,” said Ellen Whippen, of Ritchie County, W.Va.

Whippen’s grandchildren – Ava Lightfritz, 2, Chloe Lightfritz, 4, and Alex McKenzie, 11 – not only enjoyed the demonstrations by caricaturist J.D. Williamson and face painting, but also the corn.
“They all love corn and my favorite part of the entire day was watching the three of them eating the corn off the cob,” Whippen said. “There was butter and corn everywhere.”

Newman said Marietta was the obvious choice for the festival because it is the epicenter for the best corn in the nation. “The sweet corn from the Ohio River basin and southeastern Ohio has the highest sugar content in all of the United States and it’s very sought-after,” he said. “Because our corn is so good, we need to celebrate it.”

All of the corn for the event was roasted and sold for $1 by Cowboy Concessions and Catering of Whipple, Ohio, which donated time and services, said owner Dan Warren.

“I volunteer to cook the corn and Witten’s donates it,” he said. “We’re up about 1,000 ears from last year.”

A portion of the proceeds from the festival goes to ReStore Marietta and scholarships for area students. “Since we are raising scholarship money for the students of Washington County, I want to be part of it,” Warren said. “We’re helping the kids and it’s a fun event for the community.”

Newman said another reason he wanted to create the corn festival was to put a new focus on agriculture in the area.

“For a long, long time this area was full of families who raised and fed their children on homegrown food and people don’t realize that,” he said. “We need to let people know what agriculture means to the mid-Ohio Valley.”