Never seen the Corn Palace? You’re in for a treat. The annual Corn Palace Festival is kicking off August 22nd, and will run through the 26th. There are two big draws. One, the entertainment, including those old war-horses Night Ranger, Survivor, and Weird Al Yankovich. Even more thrilling, the Festival is the time when they organizers take down the last year’s murals and install the new ones. “Each year we come up with a new theme,” Corn Palace Director Mark Schilling explained to me. “The theme that’s up there now is ‘Salute To Rodeo,’ and our new theme is ‘Everyday Heroes.’ The new murals show people in the occupations that make a difference in our community, teachers, military personnel, an action-shot of a power-line man, climbing the pole when it’s 20 degrees below zero, trying to fix the electricity so you’re nice and warm at home.” In corn.
“We have 13 different colors of corn,” Schilling said. “It’s corn that most people refer to as Indian corn or Flint corn, and we have a grower who specially grows corn just for the Corn Palace. We want ears of solid color —solid blue, solid yellow, solid green.” The decorators (yes, it’s a paid position) start out with a design, by artist Cherie Ramsdell. It looks like a paint-by-numbers diagram, which they then fill in with the corn and other South Dakota-grown grains, like rye and milo (whole grain sorghum). I had to ask, what about the birds? “The birds do try to eat it,” said Schilling, “But we found with the flint corn, versus standard corn, it’s a harder kernel, so they don’t eat it as much.” It’s not like the birds don’t get a fair shot—the Corn Palace murals stay up year round. Curious? Check out the Corn Palace webcam run by South Dakota Public Broadcasting.
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