After 13 years, the Marietta Sweet Corn Festival has ended.

“We’ve liquidated and it’s dissolved,” said Mark Doebrich, festival committee vice-chairman. “We’ve been trying to keep it under wraps. The website will get pulled down and I’m seeing if we can pull the Facebook page.”

He said any funding left in the committee’s accounts will go to agriculture programs in Washington County high schools. According to committee by-laws, in the event it dissolved, the remaining funds were to be divided and each district would get about $2,700, Doebrich said.

“We wanted the money to go to agricultural programs,’ he said.

Jessie Bigley, committee chairman, said checks will be sent out in the near future.

The last two years, the festival was canceled due to the pandemic, but he said it was hard to find volunteers prior to that. That was their primary reason for no longer having the festival.

“People are just at the point where they want a cool, fun event, but in order to make it a cool, fantastic, free event, we need volunteers,” he said.

An aging committee was another reason to dissolve. Doebrich said he’s the third youngest member of the committee at age 65.

“We’ve exhausted family members, neighbors and civic organizations,” he said of getting volunteers every year. “We had two people volunteer the last time for two days.”

He noted local Boy Scout troops would help out, but they tend to go to camp during time for the festival.

A third issue is that “we’ve made the festival bigger and bigger and bigger and created a problem for ourselves,” he said.

“The cost of food has gone up and the ability to get volunteers has gone down,” he said. “The first time we canceled, we got posts about it ruining people’s summers, but none of them said they would help. They were complaining they weren’t getting something for free.”

In a press release, the committee said they voted to disband the annual event and disburse the remaining funds to the agricultural departments in the Fort Frye, Frontier, Marietta, Waterford, Warren and Washington County Career Center high schools.

The statement noted a unanimous vote of the board members to end the annual event was taken at the Oct. 18 meeting.

“As a committee, we understand the community’s enthusiasm to attend a free, family centered and fun event such as was offered in Marietta. Unfortunately, we are no longer able to provide this great event,” the statement read.

They thanked everyone who supported and attended the previous Sweet Corn Festivals, including Witten’s Farm Market for donating more than 60,000 ears of Silver Queen corn to the festival over 12 years.

Doebrich said Promanco and the Framing Gallery were organizers and financial providers the first couple of years for the event.

“Every year we counted on support from Eramet, Cowboy Dan Concessions, the SCF Committee, the many volunteer organizations such as the American Legion Post 64, the RSVP Program, area Scout Troops, the Lions and Kiwanis clubs, Peoples Bank, Washington Electric Co-op, the Schwendeman Agency, Marty’s Print Shop, AgLand, and the untold number of volunteers, too many to name, that helped the Marietta Sweet Corn Festival become one of the top events held in the Mid-Ohio Valley,” the statement noted. “We would be remiss if we didn’t thank the thousands of community members that attended the festival each year.”