Click the above video to watch reporter Bill Lynch get a little, well, missplaced in the corn maze.

MILTON, W.Va. -- There's a certain amount of good-natured menace in Kim Cooper's smile when he says he's seen the cornstalks of his corn maze in Milton reach higher than 11 feet.

"It's all dependent on the weather," he said. "Any time you do something farm-related, you have to rely on Mother Nature."

The current crop is, maybe, only 9 feet high, so it's still hard to see over the corn stalks. And once you're deep in the twisting, confounding bowels of the maze, there's not much above them except the sky and a line of trees.

For the past 10 years, Cooper has been running "The Maize" at his farm down the road from the old middle school. The corn maze is open from the middle of September until Halloween - weather permitting.

The Milton corn maze is part of a national franchise owned by "The Maize," a design and consulting firm that helps farmers like Cooper turn their corn fields into perplexing planted puzzles.

Cooper, who is also the principal at Milton Elementary and Pre-K, got into the corn-maze business while working with youths at his local church.

"We could take them roller skating or ice-skating, but we were really limited on what we could do with them," he said.

He read about a corn maze in Farm magazine, phoned someone with a maze in Tennessee, checked it out, and decided to go into business. He provides the acreage, about 8 acres, and the general design, which changes year to year.

This year's maze features a coal miner with pickaxe inside the design as a salute to West Virginia's coal miners.

The Maize then comes up with the plan to turn Cooper's cornfield into a whimsical delight for some and an exercise in futility and frustration for others.

"We try to work on precision," Cooper said. "There's just one way in and one way out. We've also got 10 decision points."

Cooper calls them "cornundrums," where maze crawlers are given specific choices to go either left or right. They let participants gauge how far along they've come and give them a set point to fall back to if they get turned around.

Without them, some might have to be found by a search party.

Before entering the maze, Cooper also offers little quiz sheets, each with 10 questions and available in a variety of topics. The questions correspond with the decision points. Correct answers offer clues on which way to go from there.

The clues don't give all the answers. They just keep you on the right track.

Occasionally, people do get trapped in the maze. They get flustered or turned around and after a while can't find their way. To prevent a nervous breakdown and for safety, the Milton corn maze has a couple of "Corn Cops," whose job it is to watch over the maze and shepherd the lost and the frazzled to safety.

"Most of the time they'll tell us they do not want help," Cooper said, but the Corn Cops are there just in case.

Cooper estimates they have 8,000 to 9,000 visitors who stop by each year and try to plow through the spiraling corridors to the exit. It's fun for him and, as far as businesses go, seems to be recession-proof.

Nothing goes to waste either. At the end of the season, the corn is harvested, stored and used to feed Cooper's cattle.

Cooper says the corn maze can have deeper meaning than just an autumn amusement. It can also be a meditation on life.

"The little decisions affect the big decisions. The big decisions can push you ahead or drag you down."

It's something to think about.

Something else to think about is proper footwear. The maze is a cornfield. Stiletto heels are a bad idea. Cooper also suggest people think about their cell phones before they go into the maze.

"We tell people if they take their cell phones into the maze," and really, he can see no point in doing that, "they should set their phones to ring loudly."

Every year, cell phones get lost in the corn maze. One year, Cooper and company counted 50 they'd found.

"Don't set it on vibrate."

Reach Bill Lynch at ly...@wvgazette.com

or 304-348-5195.