Garst Seed Company and Left & Center Field of Dreams officials announce that Garst brand hybrid seed corn has been named as the "Official Seed Corn" for the 10th Anniversary celebrations planned for the world's most prominent baseball field.

Over a decade ago, the world's most popular baseball movie, "Field of Dreams", was filmed near Dyersville, Iowa. To help celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the film, Left & Center Field of Dreams and Garst Seed Company have teamed up to create a unique and colossus maze, cut out of the
magical corn that surrounds the field. "We are very excited about the opportunity to help create
some new magic at the famous ball diamond in a cornfield," says David Witherspoon, director of marketing for Garst Seed Company. "The ball diamond and the surrounding fields of corn are very special to all those that visit the site and Garst is proud to be a part of the events planned to celebrate the movie and memories made there."

As a direct result of Garst's involvement, world famous maze artist, Adrian Fisher, has been commissioned to design a very special maze to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the filming of the award-winning movie.

The unique maze design will be cut into 6.4 acres of Garst corn during late June and early July. The grand public opening of the maze is currently scheduled for Saturday, July 31, 1999.

"Visitors from all over the United States and from around the globe all come to see the 'baseball field in the corn," says Keith Rahe, general manager for the Left & Center Field of Dreams. "And this year, thanks to Garst, those visitors will be treated to a unique experience of navigating their
way through a specially designed maze cut right into the same corn field that surrounds the ball diamond." According to Rahe, guests to the Left & Center 10th Anniversary Corn Maze will be allowed to navigate the twisting, turning and meandering maze. Rest and information areas inside the maze will pose baseball and corn related questions to the visitors. A wrong answer may in fact lead them down a dead end path. "But don't worry about getting lost," says Rahe, "fully trained 'maze-masters' will be available to help our guests discover the correct path to the end of the maze."

In the movie "Field of Dreams", the corn plays an integral role. It is in the corn that baseball fan and farmer, Ray Kinsella, played by Kevin Costner, first hears the dream-like suggestions, "If you build it...he will come." Following his hunch, Kinsella then transforms part of his cornfield into the serene "field of dreams", complete with outfield "fences" of high-as-an-elephant's-eye Iowa corn. It is from this same magical corn the "ghost players", members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox and Joe "Shoeless Joe" Jackson appear and play ball on Kinsella's cornfield creation.

In one of the classic scenes in movie history, after an evening of playing ball, Shoeless Joe Jackson trots out toward the wall of corn in the brightly-lit outfield as a dream-like fog settles in on the ball field carved out of the corn. He stops, turns and calls back to Kinsella, "Hey! Is this heaven?" "No," replies Kinsella, "It's Iowa." Jackson shakes his head, turns again and disappears into the corn.

Today, on special occasions and on the last Sunday of June through September, the Field of Dreams "Ghost Players" make their magical return through the cornfields surrounding the field. Many of today's ghost players did appear in the movie and still enjoy playing ball on the "field
in the corn" and meeting and greeting fans from around the world.

The Left & Center Field of Dreams and the special 10th Anniversary Corn Maze are located just 3.3 miles northeast of Dyersville, Iowa, and is open daily at 9 AM through November.

For more than three generations, Garst Seed Company has been an industry leader in the development and production of hybrid seed corn. From humble beginnings in the 1930s in Coon Rapids, Iowa, Garst has grown into one of the leading corn research and breeding companies in the world. Today, corn, soybeans, alfalfa, grain sorghum, sunflowers and canola are all marketed and sold under the Garst name.

Garst is the largest member of the Advanta group of companies. With corporate and research  headquarters in Slater, Iowa, Garst is a key component of an expansive worldwide Advanta seed technology network that includes research, development and breeding facilities in 13 U.S. states and in 12 countries around the globe. Thus, Garst and its worldwide sister companies employ thousands of technical staff to advance plant breeding, genetics and seed production - all with one goal in mind - to offer real benefits to farmers and help them succeed in their business of feeding the world.

Company news release
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