Larger-than-life Missouri corn maze celebrates GOATs and Kansas City Chiefs
Rob Stouffer of Precision Mazes navigated his Bobcat through a 10-acre cornfield at Johnson Farms Plants and Pumpkins, a 140-acre U-pick and family fun farm in Belton, Missouri, crafting an intricate corn maze that pays tribute to the Kansas City Chiefs and quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
The maze, inspired by a goat motif, aligns with the farm’s popular goat exhibits. “Johnson Farms wanted a Chiefs-themed maze with a goat theme,” Stouffer explained, referencing the acronym GOAT, which stands for “Greatest of All Time” and signifies an athlete at the pinnacle of their sport.
The maze features the Lombardi Trophy, a goat sporting Mahomes’ jersey number 15, a heart with “KC,” and a special message for the team, “Love Our Goats.”
“We’ve got a great team that supports us,” he said. “And so there was a ton of work that was done beforehand in terms of doing the design work.”and
Precision Mazes, based in Lee’s Summit, has been creating these larger-than-life mazes and crop art since 2001. Stouffer employs GPS technology to manually guide his Bobcat, equipped with a cutting tool, to create these grand designs.
“Today’s canvas is a cornfield,” he noted on Monday. “We’ve been here since 8 a.m.”
The process starts with designs tailored for each client. He emphasized the importance of his supportive team, noting that a lot of design work is done in advance and executing the maze is a team effort. A team of drone pilots is on site with Stouffer to capture the art coming to life.
Stouffer said he enjoys the creativity of the work, especially when it brings visitors to farms like Johnson Farms, a place known for their pumpkin patch, u-pick apples, sunflowers flower field and giant mums. “It’s always fun to create. We’ve been doing this for 24 years... I love it when clients capture our vision.”
Stouffer said he can create agriculture art in almost any type of field. “We were in corn today, but we have the ability to do it in, in just about any crop and even, even after harvest,” he said.
Last year, Stouffer created a Chiefs-themed maze honoring coach Andy Reid which spanned eight acres at the farm. Additionally, he made headlines when he carved a massive welcome message for Taylor Swift into a wheat field in Ray County, Missouri, enduring the summer heat and dust to complete the artwork.
“We created a crop art piece welcoming Taylor Swift to Kansas City,” he said, reflecting on the quintessentially Midwestern approach. The message for Swift was created ahead of her Eras Tour concerts in Kansas City, and before her budding romance with Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.
Jim Johnson, a part owner of Johnson Farms, said the idea of the goats came from his sister. “We raise a lot of goats here on the farm for the people to see in the fall, and in the petting zoo area,” he said. It was his sister’s idea to play on the on word goat, along with the Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes. “I guess he is considered the greatest of all time as far as quarterbacks,” said Johnson, whose farm has be operated by three generations of his family operate the farm since opening in 2001.
“Hopefully the Chiefs will keep winning and and, it’ll be a fun fall for everybody to enjoy,” Stouffer said after finishing the corn maze. “I would just encourage folks to come out and enjoy God’s creation, enjoy this this fun farm in Belton.”
Visitors to the farm can tour the corn maze, which Stouffer said isn’t the hardest maze he’s created. “On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d probably give it a seven,” he said. “It is not the most difficult maze, but I think most people will find it worthwhile and challenging out here.”
