Vicki Rowland
Contributing Writer
After twenty years of devoting his time and energy as Maize Master for the Elgin Maize Maze, LaVerne Swenson will not plant a maze design in the spring of 2019.
It’s the classic case of the story of “Which came first--the chicken or the egg?” Did the Elgin Maize Maze start because a farmer cared that young people were becoming distanced from the land and did not know the story of agriculture? Or did the Maize Maze start because there was an opportunity to promote a program when financed by a grant?
LaVerne Swenson was working the fields in his tractor in autumn 1996, thinking about the need to tell the story of agriculture when he heard an advertisement on the radio about a group called Silos and Smokestacks. The group had up to one million dollar grants available to promote tourism, get kids out in the fields, and to preserve the story of our agricultural past. He contacted other interested farmers in the Clermont area and formed the Turkey River Tourism committee. In the fall of 1997, it was decided to contact area businesses, boards of supervisors, tourism and economic development in northeast Iowa counties. Sixty-four people responded, and that group formed the Country Heritage Community (CHC). CHC was a partnership of the four counties in northeast Iowa — Fayette, Allamakee, Clayton, and Winneshiek.
