Maize maze teaches right choices

Right Choices Corn Maze to open for its sixth season this weekend near Southwest City, Mo.

This year's Right Choices Corn Maze design is a patriotic theme commemorating the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War.

This year's Right Choices Corn Maze design is a patriotic theme commemorating the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

— Is your family looking for an unusual destination to spend a day? Is your church searching for a spot to take the kids and youth groups? Do you need a good place to host a reunion or birthday party?

A right choice may just be Right Choices Corn Maze and Pumpkin Patch in Southwest City, Mo.

The theme for this year's festivities centers on patriotism, commemorating the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War. This is evidenced in the 7-acre maze design visitors will explore, depicting a union soldierand United States flag. The maze design acknowledges the Civil War anniversary and promotes freedom, patriotism and volunteerism.

Opening for its sixth season, Right Choices has added even more new activities and improvements for returning visitors as well as first-time guests.

In addition to hay rides, a cow train, a pumpkin patch and a corn cannon, visitors will love the new giant corn jump. This 30-by-70-foot inflated jumping pillow provides a fun experience for folks of all ages.

After enjoying the activities, guests can have a picnic, play on the hill slide and corn box and visit the farm animal zoo. There are special events going on most weekends, including an antique tractor show, gospel music and contemporary Christian music concerts, pony rides and horse-drawn wagon rides. The pumpkin house will be filled with pumpkins, apples, fresh apple cider, crafts and other seasonal produce for sale.

How it started

Not wanting to retire and do nothing and also desiring to join a love for agriculture with his Christian beliefs, Galen Manning, together with his brothers, turned the family farm into a wholesome placefor young and old alike to visit. “Right Choices” is the theme of the farm’s activities and is also the name of a book Galen has written.

photo

The restored 1800s barn on the Manning farm is seen through the wheel of an antique John Deere tractor hooked to a hay wagon for hay rides at the farm and corn maze north of Southwest City, Mo.

The farm’s mission statement, published on the Right Choices website, is “to create an environment which promotes an appreciation for agriculture with an emphasis on making ethically correct choices.”

The farm has been in the Manning family since 1870, Galen, who retired from a 26-year career with Walmart, wanted to find a way to use the family farm, which he had worked on the side, into a ministry opportunity.

Galen and his wife Barbie, a school teacher, visited another corn maze and decided to look into building a maze of their own on the family farm. They joined an organization in Utah which helps people build the mazes by designing and marking out the paths.

“My brother Gary retired about the same time as I did,” Galen said. Gary, a carpenter by trade, helped restore the farm’s 1875 barn and build other fixtures on the farm. Another brother, David, built the farm’s Web site. Galen’s daughter Charity promotes the maze and events.

When the farm is open, neighbors and members from the Mannings’church, the Full Gospel Church in Southwest City, help out with the many activities on the farm, Galen said.

“We’re only open six weeks a year, but we’re working on the maze and getting things ready allyear-long,” Galen said.

The corn - mostly field corn but also popcorn, ornamental corn and silage corn - is planted in rows going north and south and east and west. After the design is finished and the corn is planted and growing, the maze is marked to indicate where the paths are to be cut.The Mannings then use a lawn mower to cut the paths to make the 1,100-foot labyrinth in the corn. This year’s maze includes a 12-foot bridge along the pathway, allowing those trying to find their way through the maze to look out over the plot with its8-to-10-foot corn plants.

For anyone wanting an aerial view of the maze, a trip to the old hay loft will provide a view from 30 feet above the ground.

Visitors who’ve always wanted to shoot a big gun are sure to enjoy the corn cannon, complete with large bull’s-eye targets downrange. The air-powered gun will launch an ear of corn at a target 50 to 60 yards away with the touch of a button.

For the children, the Mannings have constructed a roller slide and a culvert slide, hay-bale tunnel, hay jump, duck race and corn box.

The farm-animal zoo includes pigs, goats, lambs, ducks and geese. A tractor-pulled cow train ride is also available.

Entire families can take a hay ride across the farm and along the Elk River and a nature walk leadingto an eagle’s nest and the old Slatten Mine. A picnic area, with tables and grills, is located in a grove of trees near the mouth of a cave.

The Manning Farm and Right Choices Corn Maze is located just north of Southwest City and east on Manning Road (Oklahoma 25 and Missouri County Road O) and is open weekends from Sept. 24 through Nov. 6. Friday hours are 5 to 9 p.m., Saturday 12 to 9 p.m., and Sunday 12 to 8 p.m. School field trips are available by reservation Monday through Friday, and church youth groups can make reservations to visit on Wednesday evenings.

For more information, pictures, directions, pricing or to see a calendar of events, visit the maze website at www.rightchoicescornmaze.com, or call (417) 762-3695.

Community, Pages 8 on 09/21/2011