Drought wrecks Corn Place murals

MITCHELL, S.D. — This summer’s drought is leaving South Dakota’s Corn Palace a little less colorful.

The Corn Palace in Mitchell gets new murals made of corn kernels each year but there had been concerns that the drought would make it impossible this year.

The Corn Palace Festival Board voted Tuesday to go ahead with the redecoration, but four colors of corn will be taken out of the mural designs: blue, calico, orange and light brown.

Corn varieties of different hues are planted for use in the mural, but Corn Palace Director Mark Schilling said some of the fields “looked very bleak.”

Cherie Ramsdell, the artist who designs the murals, reviewed the designs and removed the four colors.

“The colors are pretty arbitrary when you place them,” she said. “It’s a matter of contrast.”

Schilling said Wade Strand, the grower of the Corn Palace corn, will still go through and pick all usable ears.

“What has saved us this year is most of the fields that are good were not planted last year, because it was too wet,” Schilling said.

The Corn Palace Festival is Aug. 22-26.

Tags: news, weather