AMAZEMENT IN A CORNFIELD: WILD WEST ATTRACTION TAKING SHAPE NEAR BLODGETT

BLODGETT, Mo. -- Driving through Missouri on a vacation to the West, Dave Phillips and his family stopped by Donnie and Sheila Beggs' farm last week to see a cowboy he named Bronco Billy.

Bronco Billy is a maze taking shape in a green 12-acre cornfield on the Beggs family farm. Phillips is the graphic artist who designed the maze for the Pennsylvania company Maize Quest USA. Bronco Billy will be the largest among the 25 or so mazes he has designed for cornfields across the East and Midwest.

He has been intrigued with mazes since he was a boy. "They are pictures you get involved with. You don't just look at it," he said. "I don't quite know what it is. Maybe it's a way of getting lost. It could be a metaphor for life."

Phillips' wife, Pam, revealed that her husband is a driver who gets lost easily.

Corn mazes are the most exciting to him. "You get people inside them," he says. "When you draw mazes in books, you never meet the people who look at them."

The maze's formal name is The Wild West Adventure. When it opens to the public Sept. 22, the maze will include learning centers where participants can find out more about the West and gather clues to uncover a plot by the fictional Billy's archenemies, the Brandin' Bandit Brothers.

Maze maps that only can be seen with 3-D glasses will be available for those who get lost. Questers who really can't find their way out can wave signal flags at the Maize Quest watchtower.

Completing the maze and going to all the stations will take two or three hours. Afterward, participants who haven't had enough of mazes can go to a Web site to play a decoder game.

Maize Quest is the newest addition to the Beggs Pumpkin Patch, an attraction that in the fall will offer hay rides, a petting zoo of farm animals, a gift shop with autumn decorations and a pick-your-own pumpkin patch.

Corn will still be green

The Beggses are fourth-generation watermelon farmers who also grow pumpkins, corn and soybeans on their 1,100 acres. They picked the Western theme for the maze because Donnie is a member of the Sikeston Jaycees, who sponsor an annual rodeo that is one of the area's biggest events.

He waited until July 6 to plant the corn to insure it will still be green in the fall. The rows were planted 19 inches apart instead of the customary 38 inches.

"It makes a better wall," he said.

Some of the corn is only waist-high while in other places it is reaching 6 feet. In the right conditions, corn can grow a foot in a day, Donnie says.

Going through the maze is a group activity, Donnie Beggs says. "It takes teamwork."

It also requires playing by the rules. Straying off the path and cutting through the corn is not allowed.

The maze will be accessible to wheelchairs.

Sheila says the Pumpkin Patch and the maze are intended to provide family fun and to teach children things modern life has obscured.

"My 4-year-old knows where chicken nuggets come from," she says. "She doesn't know where chickens come from."

The Beggs Pumpkin Patch and Wild West Adventure are located at 2319 Route U, less than 1 mile west of Blodgett. Hours will be 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturdays and noon-7 p.m. Sundays in September. Hours in October will be 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Saturdays and noon-6 p.m. Sundays. Flashlights will be used on Saturday nights in October.

More information is available by phoning the Beggs Pumpkin Patch at 471-3879 or by visiting the Web site, www.cornmaze.com.