Progress show visits Boilers’ back 40
By TOM CAMPBELL
With an armada of 500 volunteers to back her up, and the Indiana State Fair put to bed for another year, Dana Neary says she is finally ready for the Farm Progress Show to begin.
Neary helps coordinate the Purdue University School of Agriculture’s role in events like Bug Bowl, the state fair, and — every three years — the Farm Progress Show.
“Purdue has always played a major role in the Farm Progress Show, every time it comes to Indiana,” says Neary, “and this year will be no exception.”
Some 300,000 visitors are expected to tour displays Sept. 25-27 on the adjacent farms of Jerry Smit,
BS ’78, and Alan Kemper, just south of Lafayette. Neighboring farmers Lawrence Gamble, Forrest Johnson and John Rice are also hosting the exhibition.
Prairie Farmer Magazine sponsors the event, rotated annually between farm sites in Indiana, Illinois and Iowa.
“The close proximity to the university has given us a unique opportunity to do some things we normally could not do at other Farm Progress Show sites,” Neary says.
What jumps out first at the 1,500-acre show site is the Boiler Mazer, a five-acre corn maze shaped like the Boilermaker Special train.
But Purdue’s involvement goes beyond the maze. Purdue exhibits will cover more than 22,000 square feet of display space inside the tent city exhibit area, and Purdue staff and faculty will present an antique threshing demonstration and produce alternative crops in an international garden, among other things.
“The greatest benefit to the university is the visibility and contact with the thousands of visitors,” says David Petritz, director of Purdue’s Cooperative Extension Service.
The 500 Purdue volunteers have been pooled from the Schools of Agriculture, Consumer and Family Sciences, and Veterinary Medicine, as well as Extension educators from throughout the state. They will serve as maze tour guides, “meeters and greeters” who answer questions at exhibits, and recruiters for the university.
“Purdue is considered one of the premier ag schools in the entire world,” says Petritz. “Those in agriculture, domestic and international, expect Purdue Agriculture to be very visible at the show answering questions and presenting information.
“We would be missed if we were not present and visible in a big way. The show delivers information, provides thousands of contacts, provides front page stories and puts us in touch with parents and youth from all over Indiana, the Midwest and the world.”
Brenda Hofmann has already touched both parents and youth using the maze as a summertime classroom for a group of students from Wea Ridge Elementary School in Tippecanoe County.
Hofmann, an agronomy technician, took 15 Wea Ridge students and their parents through the maze on July 30. The tour served not only as a trial run for some maze volunteers, but also as a field lesson in Global Positioning System technology that will augment what the students learned back in the classrooms when school resumed in August.
The Purdue people who created the maze used GPS technology to lay it out, and visitors can use GPS computers to navigate their way through the maze.