THE AGRICULTURAL HERITAGE : LA HABRA : Corn Feted Despite Its Non-Local Origins

Corn doesn’t grow in La Habra. It never has. Yet year after year, the city honors the vegetable with a festival and parade.

The annual Corn Festival, which takes place in August, features thousands of ears of corn and people come from all over to eat the kerneled, yellow vegetable.

Festival officials even boast of having the “best corn on the cob you can find.” But it isn’t local.

In fact, a Food 4 Less supermarket has been the source of the festival’s fresh corn for the past two years.

For 43 years before that, the La Habra Host Lions Club, which sponsors the event, bought corn from a Buena Park farmer who stopped growing yellow corn two years ago.

The celebration evolved in the late 1940s.

At that time, many local residents were Midwesterners who had migrated from the Corn Belt.

But it wasn’t that heritage that dictated the Corn Festival, according to festival chairman Chuck Overby.

“A bunch of Lions were sitting around wondering what they were going to do to raise money for charity,” he said. “They decided to have a harvest festival and said, ‘Let’s sell bowls of corn.’ That’s how we got the name ‘Corn Festival.’ ”

And for 45 years, festival-goers have become accustomed to buying corn at the popular event.

“I don’t think people care where the corn comes from as long as it’s good, and our corn truly is,” Overby said.

“People think we have some deep, dark secret, but all we do is cook the ears in the same water so no flavor is robbed.

“People swear it is the absolute best corn they’ve ever tasted.”

Regardless of where the corn comes from or how it’s cooked, the festival raises money that is donated to local charities, Overby added.

The 45th Corn Festival raised about $45,000, and more than 70,000 people attended the two-day event.