Growing Your Dream Career
Photography by: Elizabeth Lavin
Amid the flat, industrialized landscape of oil-and gas-rich Midland/Odessa, it’s common to see “nodding donkey” pumpjacks making their mechanical dive toward the dirt or the fire of a gas flare stack blazing against the endless horizon.
Texas Farm Bureau Members Jessica and Matt Norton had other ideas for the backdrop of their Midland County home, one that would allow folks to reconnect to the heartland that the couple loves so much; to touch, feel, and smell the workings of good, honest farm life and allow families to come together for an afternoon of fun. And, hey, if they happen to get hopelessly lost in the corn maze, so much the better for business.
Welcome to Fiddlesticks Farms, 80 acres of old-fashioned fun just outside the boomtown of Midland, where milking demonstrations mixed with mega corn cannons are just a couple of examples the Nortons use to entertain their visitors while simultaneously educating them about farm life.
“Matt and I started our life and business together with a vision of creating a place where we could share our knowledge and love of agriculture with the community,” Jessica says. “We wanted to provide a place that would bring families and friends together to create exciting traditions and make wonderful memories.”
Before they even met, the Nortons were independently passionate about agriculture. Matt grew up active in the FFA and 4-H Club, and then headed to Stephen F. Austin University for his Ag Science degree. Jessica, meanwhile, grew up on her family’s farm in Midkiff, raising crops and animals. When Matt attended Texas Tech for his master’s, that’s when he met Jessica, then an undergrad in Ag Commerce. They were a perfect match, though little did they know a corn cannon, potato sack slide, and hay rides to the pumpkin patch would soon be in their futures.
Once Matt graduated from Tech, he headed to North Texas for a job, but after a lifetime in small towns and in the great outdoors, he didn’t love city life. Around that time, Jessica’s parents were looking for a farm manager back in Midkiff. Matt jumped at the opportunity. On New Year’s Eve 2007, the couple married at Jessica’s family home.
It’s all a very sweet, very American pastoral story. So how’d they end up building a corn maze in the middle of the Permian Basin?
“Our friends, Ken and Laurie Graff, who own South Texas Maize in Hondo, Texas, were actually the ones who put this crazy idea in our heads,” Jessica says.
The couple was intrigued. In the name of research, Matt and Jessica went on a Texas corn maze tour of sorts, visiting the Graff’s maze, Dewberry Farm in Brookshire, and At’l Do Farm in Lubbock. Then they took their curiosity to the big leagues, attending the MAiZE Conference in Pennsylvania, then the regionally specific Lone Star Corn Maze Conference back home in Texas. After a year of research, they opened their doors in 2008.
“We knew the first week of our first year that Fiddlesticks was something special,” Jessica says.
Mike Bagwell agreed. He’s the Nortons’ Texas Farm Bureau Insurance Agent and agency manager of the Midland, Martin, Ector, and Upton Counties office. Of course, his insurance eye saw a few things the average person wouldn’t.
“The first thing I thought about Fiddlesticks was about their huge slide. I went out with my kids and went down it and thought, ‘Wow! We have got to increase their liability coverage!’” Bagwell says. “We sat down and did a full review of all their farming coverage and commercial liability coverage for Fiddlesticks. There are a bunch of liability issues when you involve children, huge slides, jumping pillows, and hay mazes. Did you know they also have pumpkin chunking guns out there?”
Luckily, Bagwell explains, in many cases Texas Farm Bureau Insurance will provide coverage for hay mazes used for recreational activities.
“It’s a specialty-type business that we, as a company, have become a leader in because of the agricultural issues involved in the underwriting process,” he says.
That was good news for the Nortons, who say their business relationship with Bagwell has blossomed into a lifelong friendship.
“Texas Farm Bureau is a large supporter of agriculture and has accepted agritourism. Mike Bagwell is easy to work with and encourages fresh ideas and supports young Ag entrepreneurs,” Jessica says. “Over time, we actually became friends with Mike and his family.”
As for advice to young entrepreneurs like the Nortons, Bagwell says business owners must plan for insurance costs when they are doing their business plan. “Insurance is not a risk a new business owner can go without. Fledgling businesses are usually cash-strapped,” he says. “An uncovered loss could ruin a new business.” In the next 5 to 10 years, Fiddlesticks has big expansion plans. They hope to build a climate-controlled pavilion next to the food service area to host summer birthday parties, weddings, and other special events.
“Our doors are only open two months out of the year, so in our off-season we actually do a lot of brainstorming and research and make the necessary changes for expansion or improvement,” as well as doing the back-breaking work of growing cotton, wheat, grass hay, corn, and pumpkins. “We also have a few dairy nurse cows and a small herd of registered Dorper sheep,” Jessica says.
Reflecting on their life so far, Jessica says, “If we had to go back in time, we would definitely do Fiddlesticks Farms again. There are a handful of small things that we would change, but overall we are happy with the risks that we took and how they turned out and we would do them again.”
In August 2012, the Nortons introduced the newest member of their Fiddlesticks venture, their baby boy, Trail Myers Norton. (This meant, of course, it was a time for Bagwell to find them the right life insurance too. “They are now covered head-to-toe,” he jokes.)
“We go to Fiddlesticks every year with our children,” Bagwell says. “Matt and Jessica are educators at heart. To give children who have never been to a farm a taste of farm life is a wonderful gift. Matt and Jessica give that gift every fall.”