Pumpkins, sunflowers, and corn — Oh My! The Exeter Corn Maze opens for the season on Sept. 3.
The Exeter Corn Maze has been a fall activity that draws in crowds from all around. Each year the owners, Artie and Robyn Cole, come up with a design inspired by current spooky movies, events and their love for the area.
The go-kart track at the Exeter Corn Maze has been a huge hit for years, as just one of the activities available of people to enjoy.
While it has grown tremendously throughout the years, Artie and Robyn remember the beginning of it all back when they were first dating.
The corn maze is located on a 140-acre farm in Exeter, which houses a corn maze, haunted corn maze, pumpkin patch, go-kart track, giant slide, teacup ride, haunted barn, zip-line, fire pits, corn pit, pumpkin jumping area, helicopter rides, and zombie paint ball.
In 2018, the Exeter corn maze was recently featured in Country Living, as one of the 25 best corn mazes across America.
Then, Artie said that at least 85 percent of the visitors were non-local and came from at least an hour away, often times even more.
Every year the Coles revamp the Exeter Corn Maze to offer more activities, as well as better flow on the property.
Artie said the goal is to create a family friendly atmosphere for a number of fall themed activities and events.
The season usually lasts from September to November with several events throughout the year hosted on the property.
The Exeter Corn Maze returns with the teacup ride for the 2022 season starting on Sept. 3.
In 2019, Robyn said they added sunflower fields and remodeled the barn, as well as a hay bale maze for younger children. They also expanded the concessions stand area and menu. That year the Coles decided to open two mazes full time to offer one haunted and one not haunted starting on opening day.
The slide started at the top of the barn, so it was pretty high up. Participants grab a potato sack and ride down the multi-slot slide.
One challenge the Coles face is the weather. The corn, pumpkins, sunflowers growth all depends on the amount of rain and if the area is suffering a drought.
The Coles are constantly expanding the farm to keep up with the crowd.
The Exeter Corn Maze started 24 years ago with just the haunted barn, but 11 years ago, the Coles created the corn maze.
The corn maze lays on a nine-acre plot of the farm.
For more than 20 years the Coles have offered the area of fun, frights, and fantastic times.
In 2020, the Coles had their biggest expansion to date, they added a new ticket entrance, expanded the barnyard to twice its original size, added a new adventure barn with rock climbing and axe throwing. Also, they have a second concession stand with treats from the Sugar Shack and Barnwood BBQ.
They also added a second haunted barn called “The Bunker” that looks like an abandoned military post.
Artie said the thing that sets The Exeter Corn Maze out among the other corn mazes is that there is so much to do in one spot.
The Coles are focused on making sure that there is something fun for everyone at the Exeter Corn Maze.
The Exeter Corn Maze hosts a number of extra activities throughout the season, including a craft fair, car show, 3k run for local FFA groups, helicopter rides, monster truck rides, a Lumberjack Show, Youth Harvest for church groups, and much more.
While Robyn and Artie enjoy many parts of owning and operating the Exeter Corn Maze — the people are what make the experience most memorable. People come from all over to visit the Exeter Corn Maze, but they said they couldn't do it without help from the locals.
This year, the Exeter Corn Maze will open on September 3 for the season. For tickets and prices people can visit
www.exetercornmaze.com.
The Coles are calling this their biggest season ever, with new photo backdrops, a new pumpkin summit tube slide, the Patchy’s Plummet, and an apple orchard with 15 varieties.
This fall don’t forget to grab a fright and some memories at the Exeter Corn Maze.
People can also follow their Facebook page for more details.
The VFW’s motto is “To honor the dead by helping the living,” and, in short, Buddy Poppies are one way to do just that.
Concerned that World War I veterans who had made the ultimate sacrifice were being forgotten too soon, Madame E. Guerin, of France, took inspiration from Colonel John McCrae's poem, "In Flanders Fields,” which spoke of poppies growing in an Allied graveyard "between the crosses, row on row," and began a push to have veterans’ organization sport red silk poppies in memory of World War I veterans.
The Buddy Poppy idea caught on in the U.S. in May 1922, when the VFW conducted the first nationwide distribution of poppies in the United States.
Later that year, at its National Encampment in Seattle in August 1922, the VFW adopted the poppy as its official memorial flower.
However, Guerin’s American and French Children's League, which supplied the poppies, had been dissolved shortly before the VFW's 1922 poppy sale, making the silk flowers hard to come by for the upcoming 1923 sale.
From adversity blooms inspiration, and the VFW formed an elegant solution that would simultaneously keep the flowers circulating as a reminder of the sacrifices so many veterans made in the name of freedom, and help living veterans who were in need, a tradition that continues to this day.
During its1923 encampment, the VFW decided that its Buddy Poppies would be assembled by disabled veterans and veterans in need, who would, in turn, be paid for their work to provide them with financial assistance. The next year, disabled veterans at the Buddy Poppy factory in Pittsburgh, Penn., assembled VFW Buddy Poppies. The designation "Buddy Poppy" was adopted at that time.
In February 1924, the VFW registered the name Buddy Poppy with the U.S. Patent Office that allows it to guarantee that all poppies bearing that name and the VFW label are genuine products of the work of disabled and needy veterans. No other organization, firm, or individual can legally use the name Buddy Poppy.
Today, Buddy Poppies are still assembled by disabled and needy veterans in VA Hospitals.
VFW posts throughout the country order Buddy Poppies from the national VFW organization, then distribute them throughout their individual communities leading up to Memorial Day in exchange for donations. Those donations are used by individual VFW posts to take care of local veterans in need.
With that business model, the VFW is able to raise money for various veteran programs on a local and a national level.
The Buddy Poppy program provides compensation to the veterans who assemble the poppies, provides financial assistance in maintaining state and national veterans' rehabilitation and service programs, partially supports the VFW National Home for Children and allows the local posts to support veterans at the local level.
Over the years, Tom Wolfe VFW Post 4207 has continued the tradition, selecting “Poppy Girls” to represent the post and its poppy sales for many years.
VFW Post No. 4207 Auxiliary Buddy Poppy Coordinator Linda Adams and VFW Post No. 4207 Quartermaster Randall Adams said the local post celebrated Memorial Day and the Buddy Poppy distribution by selecting a Poppy Girl each May for decades. That tradition ended several years ago, when the local auxiliary disbanded.
However, the auxiliary has been reformed and the post and auxiliary are hoping to bring the tradition back.
But that’s not all that’s changed. Linda said the post traditionally collected donations and distributed poppies at the intersection of U.S. 60 and Highway 37 until a few years ago, when safety concerns changed the location.
Since then, with the exception of last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the post has distributed at Walmart.
As long as COVID-19 restrictions allow, Randall said the plan this year is to distribute poppies at Walmart, Price Cutter and Lowe's.
Randall said the post hopes to raise about $1,000 each year through poppy donations to support local veterans.
While the use of poppy funds are strictly regulated, Randall said the Monett Post typically has a single use for the money – to support local veterans in need.
“We use it to help the people who need it,” Randall said. “The vets come to us and tell us what they need, and we try to help them out however we can.”
He added that veterans who are in need do not need to be members of the VFW to seek help. He said the organization is there to help any veteran in need, any way it can.
