The City of Hoschton, Georgia, population of 1700 in the city limits, may have broken the Guinness Record for the most number of scarecrows in one place. The official city count was announced today, and we have 5441 scarecrows in Hoschton!
Click here for a slide-show courtesy of Main Street News.
While officials in the city are still counting, latest estimates are over 4800. The record now stands at just over 3300.
Just how did this little city pull this off?
The project is the brainchild of Robbie Bettis, a lifelong resident and owner of several antique shopsin the area. As a joint effort between the Hoschton Business Alliance and the City of Hoschton, organizers were assigned schools, subdivisions, churches and businesses. Many, many workshops were held in the Historic Hoschton Train Depot to show the community how to make a scarecrow. Hardware stores donated wood, and the Mayor and a City Councilman made frames for anyone who needed one. Some scarecrows are extremely clever, some lifelike, and some more normal like you would see in a garden. Prudential Georgia Realty, on the corner of Hwy 53 and Hwy 332, was one of the first businesses to kick-start the project with 50 scarecrows. The idea just caught fire, and spread quickly throughout the 30548 zip code. The competition heated up, and before long there was an entire football game set up on a field, baseball games, nativity scenes with choirs, the Ponderosa with the Cartwrights, The Wizard of Oz characters, and at least 10 Sponge Bob Square Pants. Visitors can be seen every day, stopping and taking pictures of the scarecrows. We'll have to wait for the Guinness people to give a final tally on the entries they will accept, but no matter- this community has pulled together for a common cause, as neighbors worked side by side to help put Hoschton (rhymes with PUSHton) on the map!
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