Sunflower Coloring book went home with 1,800 elementary students

The Sunflower coloring book is entitled, “The Beaver Dam Farm Sunflower Story.” Authored by Candace Wickline Monaghan, an artist and farm entrepreneur, it tells the story of the Sunflower Festival. With the assistance in printing costs from Alam Design Group and Family Builders in Daleville, the coloring book was distributed to all of the county’s seven elementary schools.

Monaghan said, “Our family’s dairy farm, Beaver Dam Farm, is instrumental in the annual Sunflower Festival held in Botetourt County.” The festival is in preparation currently for the third year and will be held the first two weekends in September.

The drawings by Monaghan are from photos she took during the past two festivals and from an introduction to Beaver Dam Farm and the dairy cattle.  The family farm began in 1900 by Frank Preston Wickline and became a dairy farm in 1927.

She noted, “As part of Virginia’s agritourism initiative, I decided to explore growing sunflowers for the added income to the farm.”  The festival draws crowds– 10,000 last year as well as sunflower seeds for bird feeders. The bags of seed will be available in 10 pound bags for sale this year. The harvest is done with a combine after the blooms fade in late fall.

Each photo used of the farm and sunflowers was expertly drawn by Monaghan. There are 10 pages of drawings to be colored in and a glossary of terms related to the farm and the sunflowers. This year, 21 acres of sunflowers are set to bloom in the next two weeks at the farm located off Wheatland Road near Buchanan.

She had extra coloring books printed and will sell them for $5 as supplies last at the Sunflower Festival on Sept. 1-2 and Sept 8 and 9.  The details of the Sunflower Festival will be featured in an upcoming article in the next week.  Stay tuned for more!

Story and Photo by Cathy Benson