JACKSON TWP. — The messages start early, every day: “Is there corn today?”
Fresh sweet corn is announced on the Zupancic Farms Sweet Corn Facebook page, and if you don’t get to the roadside stand early, you’re likely to miss it.
People travel from multiple counties, some seeking up to 30 dozen ears, and at $5 per dozen or $4.50 for 10 or more dozen, the cart usually sells out by early to mid-afternoon.
“There’s typically a line waiting, cars backed up the road,” said Marcia Zupancic, who lives on the Zupancic homestead in Brown County with her husband, Tony.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]Zupancic farms has been in the family since 1916, when current owner John Zupancic’s grandfather purchased the land. “Some of the family has lived on it ever since,” Marcia said.
Each year, Indiana farms are awarded a Hoosier Homestead Award in recognition of their commitment to Indiana agriculture, and this year, one of those farms was Zupancic. The family earned a Centennial Award for more than 100 years of farming.
To be named a Hoosier Homestead, the farm must be kept in the same family for at least 100 consecutive years and consist of more than 20 acres or produce more than $1,000 in agricultural products per year.
“To keep a family farm working and in the same family for over 100 years is a tremendous feat,” said ISDA director Bruce Kettler. “Agriculture has always been at the core of Indiana and of these individuals.”
In the early 2000s, John’s middle son, Matthew, started the corn stand, which has grown into quite the attraction. It sits on State Road 135 North in Samaria, between Morgantown and Trafalgar in Johnson County, since it’s a high-traffic area. However, the corn is grown on the farm itself, on Mt. Zion Road just inside Brown County.
The original homestead is 83 acres, with the house, a few head of cattle and timber resting on the property.
Marcia decided to do some digging this year in order to settle an argument among the family about exactly how long the farm had been around.
“(John) had known we were past that hundred-year mark for a couple of years,” she said.
She had a couple of free days in February of this year and went deep into the archives of the Brown County History Center. There, they found old warranty deeds dating back to the 1800s, which Marcia was able to copy and have for their own records. That documentation helped to show the state that Zupancic met the threshold for the Centennial Award, which few Brown County farms have ever earned.
“There was some questions about how long it had been around,” she said. “We had just never taken the time to do it.”
