At the end of the quaint tree-lined street known as South First East in Snowflake is the Willis Farm. Established in 1926, it is now in its 11th year of creating the ultimate fall celebration with a farm-style amusement park that is open from Saturday, Sept. 29, until Wednesday, Oct. 31.
Instead of roller coasters and rides, there are four mazes, including the Corn Maze, the Agrifact Maze, the Warzone Maze and the Haunted Maze, plus a 15-acre pumpkin patch, a train ride and a Game Zone; all with prices that insure a lot of fun without breaking the bank.
Robin Willis, the wife of Lamar Willis, said it was about 13 years ago, that the Town of Snowflake asked them to create a pumpkin patch for the Town’s Fall Festival. Over the years, the pumpkin patch idea has grown to include everything that is featured today.
Opening day is from 10 a.m. until 10 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 29. Throughout the day, kids of all ages can venture through the Corn and Agrifact mazes, ride the train and visit the Pumpkin Patch until dark. From 7-8 p.m., the Willis family is hosting a free concert featuring Evie Claire, a 14-year-old who placed in the top 10 of America’s Got Talent, Season 12. The day ends with the Zombie Run that starts at 9 p.m. Since taking part in America’s Got Talent, Evie has been recording, traveling and performing. Her original pop album, Okay Day, recently hit the top 50 on the iTunes Pop Chart.
The Zombie Run, which has become a traditional opening night event, is for ages eight and up, with waivers required to be signed and ages eight through 12 require an adult to participate in the event with them. According to the website, the Zombie Run is where you run around in an eight-acre maze while wearing a flag belt trying to make it out of the maze alive with the flag belt.” If a zombie grabs your flag belt, you are “dead”.
Lamar and Robin, along with their family, head the production but they give a lot of credit to the many other family members and friends who work endless hours making it all come together.
The 2018 Willis Farm Corn Maze features Horne Auto Center and Mountain Mobile Auto Glass, both sponsors of the event.
The maze is created by using an image drawn onto grid paper. From there it is translated into the field. “We don’t do it the easy way by using a global positioning system (GPS) as that is pretty expensive,” said Robin. “When the corn is five inches tall, we go out and mark out the grid lines in the field with pink flags. Every nine row square in the field is a square on my piece of paper.” From there, the plants to be eliminated from the picture are marked with blue flags and taken out. After that, the Willis’ wait for the corn to grow before getting a drone picture of the final product.
The farm is open to the public from 1 p.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. The Haunted Maze whose theme this year is “Creepers of the Corn”, is typically haunted by as many as 60 scary spooks (people), and is open from 6:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. every Saturday night in October and on Wednesday, Oct. 31, Halloween night.
“The Haunted Maze costs $15 a person to go through and it is considered one of the best haunts in Arizona,” said Robin.
The Corn Maze creates hours of fun as kids and adults work their way through it, finding paper punches that get them a candy bar or sucker at the end.
“Sometimes parents get a little panicky because their kids have been in the maze for hours,” shared Robin. “But the kids always make it out and are usually in there that long because they were looking for paper punches. We have never had anyone permanently lost in the maze.”
The Warzone Maze is set up for laser tag and costs $8 per person for a 20-minute game, which includes the guns and equipment.
The AgriFact Maze comes complete with a number of farm animals, giving the kids a chance to guess what they are. Robin did let it slip that the featured animal is a miniature stallion.
The Game Zone is every kid’s dream come true, featuring a hay stack with a big slide, a trampoline ball pit, a wooden milk cow that can be milked, corn hole games and much more. The newest feature is a corn box, which is a sand box filled with corn instead of sand.
“This year we did a bigger pumpkin patch than usual, planting about 15 acres with over 50 varieties of pumpkins and gourds,” said Robin, who noted that the difference between their pumpkin patch and others is that the kids get to pick the pumpkin where it’s growing and they have a train that takes folks around the patch for $2 a person.
So mark a spot on the calendar and come celebrate fall with fun times at the Willis Farm. For prices and information, folks can visit the website at http://www.thewillisfarm-ranch.com or call (928) 243-8791.
