Competitors take down corn and belt out notes at Olathe Sweet Corn Festival

OLATHE — Competing singers and corn eaters, along with country music star Travis Tritt, entertained hundreds at this year’s Olathe Sweet Corn Festival.

Although corn is undoubtedly the main attraction, the contest that challenges people to eat as much maize as possible attracted crowds too.

In the women’s corn eating contest, Laura Borkovec took first place by taking down 12 ears of corn. She tied for first place last year, said Wayne Blair of the festival. Jason Harris won first place in the men’s competition with 18 ears of corn.

Female competitors were given 9 minutes to eat as many ears of corn as possible and male competitors were given 10 minutes. Only complete ears, with eight kernels or less were counted, said Blair. “They were also deducted for what was on the ground and what was on their shirt,” he said chuckling.

Reigning corn eating champ, Dan ‘Tiny’ Parker, who recently had surgery, sat out of this year’s event. “He went from 550 pounds to 320 pounds, so he’s lost 230 pounds. He (Parker) was up there with us, rooting and helping,” said Blair.

Organizers dedicated the women’s corn eating contest to former champ Danielle Barbee, who passed away last year, said Bobbi Sale, special events director for the town of Olathe.

In the karaoke contest, 63 singers vied for musical honors. Ten of them made it to the main stage and three winners beat out the competition.

Carrie Davis, of Clifton, Colo., took first place; Danielle Dyer, of Whitewater, Colo., took second place; and Ben Eberly, of Montrose, Colo. took third place, said the festival’s Michael Goodman.

“We had a hard time judging because of the competition,” he said. Singers are judged mainly by their voices, but also by their stage presence.

Event organizers did not have an official head count of festival attendees by press time. “There’s a lot of people here. I’m watching them stream in right now,” said Sale. She said many attendees arrived in the afternoon, despite the hot weather.

By the end of the day festival-goers were expected to have taken in roughly 75,000 ears of corn, Sale said. This year’s event welcomed new attractions for children and a brand new sound system.

Said Sale, “The main thing that we’ve got is a lot of happy people eating a lot of corn.”