Cultivating an a-maizing idea
By Dennis Kelly
A college fund-raiser to help flood victims
Like Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams, folks at Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania have built an attraction in a cornfield.
Now they're hoping people will come, because proceeds will help flood victims in the Midwest.
In this case, the "Amazing Maize Maze" is built in the shape on a dinosaur - a huge one cut out of 3 acres on farmer Gerald Hoffer's field in Annville, 20 miles east of Harrisburg.
The attraction is the same as in other mazes (usually built from hedges) that have been popular around the world. Give people a thrill by turning them loose in a human-size maze to find their way out—with or without clues.
One of the world's big names in maze building—England's Adrian Fisher—designed this one, reputed to be the biggest in the world.
But the idea of doing it belongs to Don Frantz, a Disney World producer and 1973 alumnus of Lebanon Valley College.
He'd read about mazes in other countries. Composer Stephen Sondheim suggested the "Amazing Maize Maze" name one day over lunch.
"If there was an American adaptation of the European art, it would be a maze in a cornfield," Frantz said from his office in Orlando, Fla.
Now, after weeks of work with family, friends and student leader Joanne Marx, the maze is ready to open Sept. 11-12. Admission is $5 a person. The only other weekend the maze will be open is Oct. 1-3, through Halloween is under consideration. After that, corn dies, and the maze may or may not be built next year.
"The first two people walking through the maze were my father and I, " Frantz says. "I don't know if I felt like Kevin Costner, but it was pretty great."
