Grower’s prideThe seeds of Hank Morris’
hobby came in the mail––literally.
In 2009, Our Iowa Magazine sent subscribers five tall corn kernels and invited them to participate
in a statewide contest to grow the tallest stalks, sponsored by Edward Jones Investments.
Hank and his wife, Ann, planted the seeds next to their garage on Ninth Street in Waterloo and watched them grow.
At harvest time, they dug up each plants’ roots and stretched the stalks out in their drive-way. A contest representative came by that fall to measure the corn from end to end. The Morrises’ tallest stalk was 17 feet, 8 inches from end to end.
Even with that remarkably tall corn Hank and Ann didn’t win the contest––Hank recalls the winner’s stalk measuring 20 feet––but they discovered another prize.
“After (the contest representative) left, I thought, ‘What am I gonna do with it?’” Hank says in a Missoura’ drawl that comes from the same place he does––Northern Missouri. “I thought I’d just break it over my knee and throw it in the trash. But I couldn’t break it. It
was hard.”After sawing the first stalk into
pieces and throwing it in the trash, Hank paused.
“I thought, ‘Wait a minute, that’s gotta be good for something,’” he explains. “So I just threw it in the back of the garage and let it dry out over winter. Then I took the leaves off it and thought, ‘Hey, that’s kind of a neat walking stick.’”
The following summer, the maga-zine sold packets of the same tropical seed, five kernels for $5. Hank bought five packets. The couple had recently moved to a Western Home Windcrest Villa on the south side of Cedar Falls, and they asked their neighbors to plant their corn kernels around the area.
“I ended up with quite a few stalks then,” Hank says.
He fashioned each one into a walking stick with a lanyard and rubber end and searched for a buyer. He found one at Barn Happy in Cedar Falls.
“She took ‘em all,” he says.
A few years ago the shop at the Little
Brown Church in Nashua also started
selling Hank’s walking sticks and canes.
Now every summer Hank and Ann plant a
raised bed in Western Home’s gardens full of their tall corn, in addi-
tion to tomatoes and flowers.
“When you get our age you don’t have a place to plant this stuff, but Western Home is nice enough,” Ann explains. “They’ve got these raised gardens and if you volunteer you can speak for those plots and you can put any-thing you want in there. That’s how he’s got his corn space.”
Hank also found his own source for the Brazilian corn seed. But that’s a big secret.
“Ever since I had the first, I kept looking for my own source,” Hank says. “There were some Mexicans down in Marshalltown who grew it, and I tried to talk to them and find out
where they got their seed.“And that’s all I will say about that,” he
adds with a chuckle.While growing peculiar corn varieties has
become the Morrises’ labor of love, Hank admits that he doesn’t know much about it.
“It comes out of Brazil and they make silage out of it, that’s all I can tell ya,” he says.
Hundreds of dried up corn stalks rest in corners and on shelves in Hank’s workshop in the garage on Iris Drive. He’s still working to catch up from the nearly 100 stalks he har-vested last fall.
“I’m not gonna plant too many this year,” Hank explains. “I had lots of stalks from plant-ing last year.”
As soon as the weather’s nice enough, Western Home Communities’ residents can expect to see Hank and Ann in their raised bed south of the Round Barn planting more seed for the 2014 season.
The plant’s bulk requires extra hydration.“This corn takes a ton of water,” Hank says.
“Last summer we were going over there at least every other day to water it. It takes about two hours.”
But the Morrises enjoy it.“We have a lot of fun,” Ann says. “You
would be surprised of those people who look at our garden. They get entertainment out of it, too.”
Hank agrees.“People are the fun part of it,” he says.It’s the community at Western Home, along
with the freedom and opportunity to pursue their hobbies, that Ann and Hank, both almost80, say they enjoy the most about their home of four years.
“You can do just as much as you want or just as little,” Ann says. “They like volunteers.Other than that, you just do as you please.”
“This is a great place for old fogies like us,” Hank says with a smile. “There’s no yards tomow and no snow to shovel. And you’re inde-pendent. This is our home.”
Page 4 Page 5Waverly Newspapers/Cedar Falls Times, May 2014
KATIE RESOP AND COURTESY PHOTOS
After every fall harvest, Hank Morris dries the tall corn stalks all winter long
in his garage. Once they’re ready, he transforms them into walking sticks and
canes in his workshop. The final prod-ucts are for sale at Barn Happy in Cedar
Falls and the Little Brown Church in Nashua or through Hank himself.
Since moving into a Western Home villa on the south side of Cedar Falls four years ago, the Morrises have volun-
teered to care for a raised bed on the grounds. Every year they plant their tall
corn, a favorite spectacle for all Western Home residents, and harvest it
in the fall to make walking sticks.
Golden Years THE GOLDEN YEARS: Waverly Newspapers & Cedar Falls Times
Western Home couple transforms tropical corn into walking sticks
BY KATY [email protected]
Hank and Ann Morris pose in front of their Western Home villa with walking sticks Hank made from the tall corn they grow each year near the round barn on the Western Home grounds.
“We have a lot of fun. You would be surprised of those people who look at our garden. They get entertainment out of it, too.”
– ANN MORRIS, GARDENER
At Western Home Communities, Hank andAnn’s corn stalks are a great conversation topic. Standing at 6’6” himself, Hank isn’teven half as tall as his tallest stalks, which have reached over 17 feet tall.
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