The first few days of fall have come and gone, bringing cool weather, pumpkin-spice fever and, of course, some field-bound friends.
Courtesy of Visit Fairfield County.
Named the “Scarecrow Capital of Ohio,” Fairfield County will hold its third annual Trail of Scarecrows from Oct. 1 through the end of the month.
Pickerington is one of 14 communities that will participate in the event. In years past, churches, libraries and individual families have all participated, says Fran Tharp, Visit Fairfield County marketing director.
Although the event first began in 2019, a smaller Trail of Scarecrows was started in 2018 by a resident in the Fairfield County Village of Bremen. From there, Tharp says, the idea only grew.
“We went to them and said, ‘Hey, can we steal your idea to bring it to the whole county?’ and they were like, ‘Yeah, sure!’” she says. “So that’s why we started doing it. (Bremen) did it first, and we saw how cool it was, and so we took it and expanded it, and now everybody gets to play.”
Hundreds of scarecrows are expected to be scattered across Fairfield County, according to the Visit Fairfield County website, each of which must be given a name by its creator.
Visitors will have the chance to vote on their favorite straw-filled sidekicks via a QR code accompanying each scarecrow, Tharp says.
People’s Choice Award winners from each community will be gifted a $50 Visa gift card along with a plaque, giving victors bragging rights for having one of the best scarecrows in Ohio’s Scarecrow Capital.
Scarecrow-goers also have an incentive to see all the sights they can. By entering codes paired with every scarecrow into the Visit Fairfield County app, visitors can work towards a prize that will be offered once they visit a certain percentage of scarecrows.
Courtesy of Visit Fairfield County.
Although registered scarecrows are not officially required to be put out until Oct. 1, Tharp says many have already gone up.
“We figured that would happen over the weekend when people have some free time,” she says. “Just do it. Get it over with.”
Those who are interested in adding some Halloween flair to their communities are still free to register to put up a scarecrow despite the Sept. 27 deadline on the registration form. In the past, Tharp says, Fairfield County residents have put scarecrows up through the second and third weeks of October.
“The more the merrier,” Tharp says. “That’s our theory with this, and the more scarecrows we have, the better for everybody.”
For those with schedules too packed to put together a life-sized figure, just seeing the Trail of Scarecrows on a crisp October weekend may be just as good for getting in the spirit of the season.
“It’s definitely worth coming to see,” says Tharp. “It’s really neat, and the thing that we really love is the creativity that some people show.”
Tess Wells is an editorial assistant. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
