Annual Sugar Grove Corn Boil a summertime staple: ‘It's a good family event'
'I've come many times before, and I keep coming back. It's friendly, it's kid-friendly and there's lots of food and crafts,' she said Saturday morning as she walked with her husband Robert and granddaughter Freya, 4, into Volunteer Park in Sugar Grove for the festival which ran from Thursday to Sunday. 'I love corn, and it's the only vegetable my husband will eat.'
More than 25,000 people were expected to attend this year's annual event, a tradition that is nearing 60 years.
This year's event again featured a full musical lineup from Friday through Sunday, along with the second annual cornhole tournament on Friday; Bingo on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday; arts and craft vendors on Saturday and Sunday; and a car show on Sunday.
The festival's parade was held on Friday and carnival rides and more than a dozen food options were offered daily.
During the event, officials said the unpredictable weather had been impacting attendance including Saturday morning as the Vasicas and others began to come into the park for the festival.
David Baumgartner of Sugar Grove was working as a volunteer on Saturday.
'Once the weather cleared up people were here and enjoying themselves,' he said of the first couple of days of the festival.
'Attendance has been OK,' he said Saturday. 'It seems like it was decent but people were worried about the weather. But to me, the biggest draw is a mix of the fresh corn and the bands and the teens and kids with the rides.'
Robert Vasica admitted he does, in fact, like corn and that one ear 'would probably be enough.'
'I was at carnivals as a kid and seeing things through my granddaughter's eyes now is a little different,' he said. 'They're probably bigger and better. I like how this is organized.'
Shawn West of Joliet was manning Annabelle's BBQ at the event.
'The weather has been a little bit of a bummer but that's what happens,' he said, noting that 'the best we ever did here was sell 2,400 pork chops on a stick.'
Predictably, an army of volunteers was on hand Saturday preparing corn including Dave Burroughs of Sugar Grove.
'We've done as many as 11,000 ears of corn some years,' he said.
'The corn came from southern Indiana this time,' he said while looking at a huge tub where corn floated in water. 'I think people keep coming to this because it's a good family event – food, music, carnival. What else do you need?'
Trevor Sartain of Bristol stood by three corn boilers that could hold 50 ears of corn each and said this was his third year at the corn boil and he 'likes the whole community aspect of it.'
'This has that country-like feel to it,' he said. 'I like that.'
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Chicago Tribune
28-07-2025
- Chicago Tribune
Annual Sugar Grove Corn Boil a summertime staple: ‘It's a good family event'
Debbie Vasica of Elgin has been making a habit of coming to the annual Sugar Grove Corn Boil every summer. 'I've come many times before, and I keep coming back. It's friendly, it's kid-friendly and there's lots of food and crafts,' she said Saturday morning as she walked with her husband Robert and granddaughter Freya, 4, into Volunteer Park in Sugar Grove for the festival which ran from Thursday to Sunday. 'I love corn, and it's the only vegetable my husband will eat.' More than 25,000 people were expected to attend this year's annual event, a tradition that is nearing 60 years. This year's event again featured a full musical lineup from Friday through Sunday, along with the second annual cornhole tournament on Friday; Bingo on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday; arts and craft vendors on Saturday and Sunday; and a car show on Sunday. The festival's parade was held on Friday and carnival rides and more than a dozen food options were offered daily. During the event, officials said the unpredictable weather had been impacting attendance including Saturday morning as the Vasicas and others began to come into the park for the festival. David Baumgartner of Sugar Grove was working as a volunteer on Saturday. 'Once the weather cleared up people were here and enjoying themselves,' he said of the first couple of days of the festival. 'Attendance has been OK,' he said Saturday. 'It seems like it was decent but people were worried about the weather. But to me, the biggest draw is a mix of the fresh corn and the bands and the teens and kids with the rides.' Robert Vasica admitted he does, in fact, like corn and that one ear 'would probably be enough.' 'I was at carnivals as a kid and seeing things through my granddaughter's eyes now is a little different,' he said. 'They're probably bigger and better. I like how this is organized.' Shawn West of Joliet was manning Annabelle's BBQ at the event. 'The weather has been a little bit of a bummer but that's what happens,' he said, noting that 'the best we ever did here was sell 2,400 pork chops on a stick.' Predictably, an army of volunteers was on hand Saturday preparing corn including Dave Burroughs of Sugar Grove. 'We've done as many as 11,000 ears of corn some years,' he said. 'The corn came from southern Indiana this time,' he said while looking at a huge tub where corn floated in water. 'I think people keep coming to this because it's a good family event – food, music, carnival. What else do you need?' Trevor Sartain of Bristol stood by three corn boilers that could hold 50 ears of corn each and said this was his third year at the corn boil and he 'likes the whole community aspect of it.' 'This has that country-like feel to it,' he said. 'I like that.'
Yahoo
02-07-2025
- Yahoo
What shall I tell my friend when she smells in the heat?
As a July baby, I am on the side of sunshine and the causes of sunshine. Warmth is my medium. When the local TV news carried a 'yellow heat health alert' – the condition formerly known as 'summer' – yesterday, I rolled my eyes. Don't talk to me about heat. Some of us are old enough to remember the summer of 1976, when it was so hot for so long that the tarmac on the pavements melted and the lampposts dipped like wading birds. Lawns were crispy brown and people queued at standpipes for water. No one had heard of 'air con' and sunscreen was in its infancy. We didn't really bother with it. I remember the agony of badly burnt shoulders on Bri-Nylon sheets in a seaside boarding house. Somehow the artificial fibres, slithery to the touch, made it worse. Can that be right? A heatwave is not 'three or four days' as a TV weatherman tried to claim. Wimps! When I tweeted my memories of the summer of '76, several people raised me the sizzling summer of '59, before my time. 'Now that really was a summer from May 5 to mid-October,' Michael recalled. 'Weeks and weeks of hot weather.' Anyway, yesterday I finally cracked and broke my vow to never ever complain when we have great weather in this country. The dog was miserable and could only be walked at first light or after 8pm. I put ice cubes in Bingo's water. I had the fan on all night Monday into Tuesday, but I still woke up feeling like I hadn't had any joined-up sleep, so I was tetchy. And then there was the unmentionable problem: body odour. Two showers a day to try and keep the sweat at bay. But what about other stinky people – do you say something or not? I met a friend for a coffee at my club in London; Sarah had just got off the Tube, where the heat had gathered in the tunnels like a furnace and the air was unbearable: soupy and stagnant. When Sarah dipped in for a hug, the pong made my eyes water. KO'd by BO! She said she had her office summer party in a couple of hours and I wondered if I should tell her. Tell her what exactly? 'You smell, darling?' 'How about some more deodorant?' What if she was mortified? There is no sweat etiquette that I'm aware of. But I couldn't let my friend enter a room with all of her staff and have them thinking the new boss had terrible personal hygiene. On the other hand, a polite form of words eluded me. I pulled out some perfume from my bag and sprayed her generously with it. 'Do I pong?' she laughed. 'Er, a bit sweaty, yes.' 'Ah, thank you for telling me.' Sarah reminded me that she totally lost her sense of smell after Covid. 'It's good because I can't smell anyone else. Trouble is, I can't smell if I smell either.' We went to the powder room and Sarah had what my grandmother used to call a 'strip wash' while I held her blouse. Her body was now clean, but the blouse was impregnated with sweat. I applied lashings of perfume under its arms and over her hair. I just got a text from Sarah: 'After you washed me and sprayed me with perfume I went to that office party. There was no air movement at all and I was talking to the most wonderful, suave, handsome Frenchman. I'm sure all he could smell was the strange combination of leftover BO and your scent. He thought I was a party girl on the pull – it was great!' I'm glad I told Sarah about the BO because, I guess, I'd hope someone would be honest with me – and that I wouldn't take offence. Meanwhile, I made a mental note to travel everywhere with a can of 72-hour odour protection and a change of top. Even a July baby was prepared to concede that, just for once, it was too darn hot. And then, this morning, the loveliest sound in the world: rain! Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Yahoo
18-03-2025
- Yahoo
Family of 5 barely escapes wildfires, finds shelter at Payne County Expo Center
A family of five with their five dogs clustered in a corner of the Payne County Expo Center on Saturday. It was quiet, except for the murmur of Red Cross volunteers and a few families sitting on cots. Robert Hand and his family – which included his mom, Kimberly Gibson, his brother, Daniel, his brother's girlfriend, Jennifer and his nephew, Jeremiah – had been trapped in their mobile home as winds whipped flames in a nearby field across from their home Friday. The displaced family – along with three Boston Terriers and two Pit bulls – eventually found transportation to the Red Cross shelter set up at the Expo Center. About 115 displaced people found a place to stay overnight Saturday after winds nearly 70 mph combined with low humidity resulted in wildfires that destroyed 170,000 acres across Oklahoma on Friday. The family, other than Jeremiah, declined to be photographed. Robert told the News Press he didn't know how or where the fire started, but when the family woke up Friday, he opened up all the windows. Their mobile home was part of a small trailer park not far from Wellston, where State Highway 105 and Logan County intersect. 'I started smelling smoke,' Robert said. A huge tree line blocked their view, with a wildlife refuge park behind it. 'You could see the smoke coming up over (there) ... the wind was so intense,' he said. The family doesn't have a vehicle. No fire map was relaying accurate information, so they were going only by what they could see. 'We started trying to get our to-go bags together, but with no vehicle, it was all the way down to the last minute where there was fire on both sides of the road,' Robert said. 'And we were driving through the columns of fire just to get out. That's how last-minute it was.' Deciding what to take with them was tough. 'Everything seems important, everything,' he said. The family never received fire alerts on their phones, until they looked out the window and saw the flames. A shadow passed over the window as they discussed what to do, and when they walked outside, it was black and they could feel the heat – it was no longer wind. 'At one point, we're looking out there, like, 'Should we dig a hole that we could all (get in)?' Robert said. 'We did not know what we were going to do.' By the time they could see the flames, they didn't know they were the last people in the neighborhood. Luckily for them, he said, Charles, a friend of the family, came to check on their neighbors. They had packed their bags earlier, but by the time they caught a ride out, they were piling dogs in and were only able to grab one or two bags. The embers and smoke even singed one of their pit bull's fur coat. Jeremiah, Robert's nephew, said one minute he was on a call with friends, waiting for a new video game update. 'Next thing we know, it gets all dark, the power goes completely out because the fire chewed through one of the power lines,' Jeremiah said. 'We had to leave a dog behind because we couldn't get her in the car in time.' He said that was around 2:30 p.m. – which he knew because that's when his game was updating. His grandma, Kimberly Gibson, said he was crying because they had to leave the dog, Missy, behind. The ride out was harrowing. 'When we started pulling away, we noticed that right around the bend, right there, I mean, no more than 100 feet was the flames,' Robert said. 'That 100 feet disappeared real quick.' They left their home around 3 p.m., but sat up at the end of the road waiting for about six hours. The alerts on their phones told them to go to the Iowa Tribe Community Center that had been designated as a shelter. They found an empty building with chairs and water, nothing more. At one point, they were in two vehicles and were separated for about an hour – not sure if they'd see each other again. The Red Cross eventually directed them to the Expo Center. When they returned to their home that evening to see if there was anything left, the scene was 'post-Apocalyptic,' Robert said. Of the 12 trailers in the mobile home park, none were left. 'It just didn't feel real, like the trees all burned from the inside and leveled as far as you could see,' Robert said. 'Somewhere where, you just got out of bed – to walk up and see it just totally gone. … Nothing but the frame on the ground.' Jeremiah said the ruins looked like 'old abandoned ruins from medieval times. … It was really pretty and it was scary at the same time.' Kimberly said her biggest fear was seeing the trees which looked like a 'haunted forest.' 'As we're driving by, some of the trees are starting to fall,' Kimberly said. 'I kept thinking … it's going to fall to the road.' They did find the dog that had been left behind. Safely back at the Expo Center finally, they tried to process what they had just been through. 'It's sinking in,' Robert said. 'It's very surreal.' He said his brother's girlfriend, Jennifer, has a rental home, but they don't know if it's available right now. Robert, originally from California, had been living and working in Texas and had just moved to Oklahoma two weeks ago to be with his family, bringing his dog with him. 'I was moving out here to start anew,' Robert said. Growing up in California, Robert was used to preparing for natural disasters like earthquakes. But he said that Friday, no one had a 'bug out bag,' or a three-day disaster survival kit, prepared. Robert had been on the search for a job. In the rush to leave, his birth certificate and drivers license had been left behind, and he'll need to start the process of replacing them so he can find employment. 'Now, I've just got to take it one problem at a time and see,' he said. Robert said he was thankful for the Red Cross and their assistance. 'Otherwise, I don't know what we would have been doing,' he said. 'I'm not huge on handouts … but I can see it as necessary for some people,' which now included his family.
