Marine City sets world record for longest string of popcorn
For a brief moment Sunday evening, U.S. and Canada were connected by one really long string of popcorn.
The string, which stretched across the 0.7-mile width of the St. Clair River, took off from Marine City and was sped across the body of water via boat to be briefly passed off to the mayor of St. Clair Township, Ontario.
The connection was made using a string of popcorn that beat the previous Guinness World Record for the longest string of popcorn. The old record was 320 meters. Sunday's string was 365.76 meters.
The ultimate goal of the weekend, aside from setting a Guinness World Record? To create the highest voter turnout for a community in Michigan.
The event was part of Pumpkins, Popcorn and Politics, a Marine City event designed to inspire people to vote. Mariner Theater owner Gary Kohs was the sponsor behind the weekend of events.
"This is small-town America at its finest," Kohs said.
The idea was born after a group of students, who took part in St. Clair County RESA's Challenge 4 the Future, came up with the effort to inspire people to vote.
As part of the weekend of events, hundreds of people gathered Saturday to attempt to set the record for most pumpkins carved simultaneously. Unfortunately the group fell short of their goal by just over 300 pumpkins.
However, Sunday's attempt, which had to be done within a 24-hour window, was much more successful.
The group of 160 volunteers, who came from all over the region in addition to Ontario, began stringing the popcorn on Saturday afternoon. It ran from 4 p.m. to midnight, and local fire trucks came by to provide lighting, Kohs said. Then the group started up again at 9 a.m. Sunday and stopped at 3:56 p.m. to stay in the bounds of the time restraints.
The corn came from Vandenbossche Farms in China Township and was popped by local business Popcorn Paradise.
"This is all local," Kohs said.
Two surveyors from BMJ Surveyors volunteered their time to oversee and measure every string of popcorn. There was also video record of every single kernel.
Kohs said the popcorn string endeavor came with its own set of challenges. Sunday morning brought with it torrential downpour - weather with lethal consequences for popcorn.
Though the group had anticipated the storm and covered the already strung popcorn, the humidity from the storm caused much of the popcorn to shrink.
At first, the group thought it was over. But Kohs said they decided to keep going.
"We've come too far," he said. "We're not quitting."
The U.S. to Canada connection was just for fun, Kohs said.
It took two tries to make it across the river - on his first attempt, Kohs went too fast and the string broke. Since there was still more than enough strung popcorn left, he just tied a new knot and went slower.
Marine City mayor Raymond Skotarczyk stood on the U.S. side of the St. Clair River and held the string as it was passed to the mayor of St. Clair Township, Ontario.
"That was a lot of fun," Skotarczyk said.
There was much excitement in the air after Kohs returned with a large assembled crowd cheering and clapping. Kohs said he hopes that next year they can establish the first international record by redoing the event bigger and better.
Because the record-breaking popcorn on the string needed to be hygienic enough for human consumption, Kohs came up with a loophole: the leftover popcorn would be fed to livestock which would eventually be fed to humans.
Erika DeLange, executive director of the Marine City Chamber of Commerce, said the event showed the level of community pride in Marine City.
"It generated a lot of buzz around the community," she said. "The number of volunteers is just astounding."
There is still one more record to be broken: the voter turnout record.
"We'll see how that goes in two weeks," Kohs said.
The record for the longest string of popcorn is not official yet as it must go through several steps of certification first.
Contact Anya Rath at (810) 434-2172 or arath@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @anya_rath.
