‘Sweet corn’s just what he ended up doing’

WINTERSET — Nodaway Valley teacher and coach Keith Kiburz will always have a summer job as long as his family is in the sweet corn business.

Kiburz owns and manages Kiburz Sweet Corn in Winterset, which is widely known for selling on street corners around southwest Iowa. They also supply grocery stores in the area with corn. Keith is married to Allison, who also teaches and coaches at Nodaway Valley.

Kiburz Sweet Corn regularly employs Adair County youth. This year Jordan Brewer, Zane Lilly and Clay Hohertz are three teenagers who stepped up to the challenge of picking corn each day and selling it in different communities.

“It’s not hard, I’ve done worse,” said Brewer, who had picked 27 bags of corn before 8 a.m. last Friday as another blazing hot day took shape.

Hohertz sold corn last summer as part of the NV football team but this is his first year picking.

“Kiburz just texted me and asked me if I was interested. I said I was, so I showed up yesterday and started picking,” he said. “Being outside and together with people making money is what intrigued me about it.”

Kiburz took the family business over from his uncle Kent seven years ago, who originally took it over from his grandfather Kenny, who began the venture in the early 1990s.

“Grandpa Kenny was always an entrepreneur. Whether it was doing seed or this and that, he was always looking for how to make money. Sweet corn’s just what he ended up doing,” Kiburz said.

Kiburz rents approximately 37 acres west of Winterset where several different varieties of sweet corn is grown. The season lasts for about a month.

“We go out and have a quota to fill. Once we get our quota filled we go out to the various towns until we’re sold out, or 5 o’clock,” said Lilly, explaining the daily process. Last Friday, for example, sweet corn was being sold in places like Winterset, Creston, Indianola, Greenfield and Atlantic.

Kiburz said there are a lot of moving parts to growing sweet corn but said he enjoys instilling a good work ethic in those who pick and sell the corn.

“They’ve gotta get up early in the morning and put in hard work. We pay well and they earn a good little wage, but it’s that work ethic that is the Kiburz family mentality,” Kiburz said. “Whether we’re making money or not, when we’re teaching those values to kids, that’s something that’s pretty important to me for what we’re trying to do.”