Nappanee Advance-News, Volume 129, Number 29, Nappanee, Elkhart County, 20 July 2006 — Page 19

Warm climates make the Maple Syrup flow in ‘O6

By Anthony Gadson Editor Compared to frigid temperatures of the 2005 Wakarusa Maple Syrup Festival, the 2006 version was much more visitorfriendly. "The beautiful weather brought in record-number crowds," Wakarusa Chamber of Commerce Secretary Doris Biller said about the 37th annual festival in April. The festival began on Friday, a day in which Melissa Ramer was named the 2006 Wakarusa Maple Syrup Festival Queen, while Bryandrya Barrick was named the 2006 Maple Syrup Festival Sweetheart. Following the coronation of the two girls, the grand marshal's reception was then held at the North Wood Middle School gym for Ron and Kathy Berkey. Once Friday had come to a close, the festival really picked up on a sunny Saturday morrting, when the downtown parade began at 10 a.m; "It was one of the larger parades we've had, with over 70 units participating," Biller said. Once the final parade marcher walked through the downtown area, volunteers were right there to begin setting up activities, such as the cross cut saw contest, the maple

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* ADVANCE NEWS PHOTO/A.W. GADSON The Maple Syrup Doughnuts must have been good as (left to right) Josiah Telschow, Randy Belt and Gerald Roberts stuff their faces during this year’s doughnut eating contest.

syrup doughnut eating contest and the new Scare Factor event. "There were crowds at each event," Biller said. "But one of the more popular ones was the Scare Factor." Scare Factor, which is based on the FOX television series "Fear Factor", involved participants competing in three different stages in the hopes of winning S2OO. The first stage involved contestants transferring water from a large tub, located a half-block west of the downtown square, into buckets hung almost 10 feet off the ground, located at the square. The 10 fastest rimes from that stage, then moved on.

In the second stage of the competition, contestants buried

their faces into spaghetti noodles, removing the 10 cow eyeballs from the spaghetti into another tray. Once past that stage, the finalists then had the luxury of eating a cup of cow brains. "It's actually a delicacy," Biller said. The Scare Factor "food"

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"We had a local restaurant handle the food," Biller said. If cow eyeballs and brains didn't get your mouth watering, then you may have ventured on to the food vendors, where there was a constant line all day long. "I'm guessing the food vendors did pretty well," Biller said. "The craft and commercial booth vendors all seemed pleased." And from what she witnessed, it may not have only been the vendors who left Wakarusa pleased. "It's a wonderful thing that we had such good numbers," Biller said about the attendance for the two-day festival. "We had a lot of good people in town, and hopefully they'll return as visitors."

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