Brian Linville rides the zipline over the Cooper Family Farms Corn Maze in Milton.
MILTON, W.Va. — On a short list of great modern day mysteries, somewhere between “Where is Jimmy Hoffa” and “Were there really two shooters in Dallas,” perhaps we should consider a new addition: How do you make a corn maze?
“My standard answer when I’m asked that question is, ‘If I told you I’d have to kill you,’” said Kim Cooper, of Cooper Family Farms in Milton.
“I’ve been asked that question many, many times, and it’s a secret.”
He said it with a pleasant tone of finality, as if that would really stop an inquisitive and persistent (some might say stubborn) reporter. Of course, THAT didn’t work.
He was more agreeable to eliminating some of the possibilities, so for a while we went with that.
“It’s not done by alien life-forms,” he confirmed.
“The same people that make crop circles don’t make this.”
There are a handful of websites that offer instructions, of sorts, for how these feats of Fall are accomplished, but Kim denied the use of GPS technology or anything involving Google Earth.
Finally, he gave me a small nugget to go on.
“It’s all based on a mathematical algorithm,” he said.
Then he added, in answer to yet another question, “I am far from being a math whiz.”
And so the mystery deepened…
