Market masters mirror history at Bethany Beach Farmers’ Market

Dan Costello and Gene Jordin, market masters for the Bethany Beach Farmers’ Market, are looking forward to the market’s 2008 season with their new logo and slogan, “Our growers, Our neighbors.” The two friends, who are also neighbors, got involved last year, when the market was in its infancy. Costello, who is on the board of the Bethany Beach Landowner’s Association, got involved through that and BBLA Board President John Himmleberg.

Coastal Point • Monica Fleming
Dan Costello and Gene Jordin, Bethany Farmers’ Market masters. They make sure that everything runs smoothly and have been instrumental in the market’s success. They recently unveiled the market’s new logo, a year in the works.

“I liked the idea of a farmers’ market in Bethany,” said Costello.

“And I happen to be his neighbor,” interjected Jordin, laughing. “So, the next thing I know I’m knee deep in farmers, growers and mushrooms.”

The two said they were pleased with last year’s inaugural Bethany market, despite having only five months to prepare.

“From February to June, last year, everything did fall into place,” said Costello.

“And we are trying to fine-tune it this year,” added Jordin.

The job description of the market masters is, at its simplest, to make sure the market runs smoothly. They help set up and break down the market and “keep law and order” while dealing with everyone from farmers and the customers to the nearby bank whose parking lot hosts the market, the nearby church that is a main attraction downtown on those same Sunday mornings and the town itself.

The market masters also participated in the selection of the growers, and Costello added that farmers such as Carrie Bennett of Bennett Orchards are “invaluable” in that aspect.

“The critical thing is a smooth operation on Sunday,” said Costello. “And the farmers are looking to us to know that the market knows what its doing.” Many of the farmers participate in several area markets, so they can see when things are being run well.

Combined, the men have little hands-on experience with managing farmer’s markets, but what they do have is an interest in agriculture and in history, something that blends together well as the market has produced a logo after working on it for more than year — a picture of a man on a horse pulling a wagon of vegetables, with the slogan, “Our growers, Our neighbors.”

“The market was easier to put on than the logo,” noted Costello with a laugh.

Jordin, who lives half of the year in Wilmington and half in Bethany Beach, said he always loved to grow things and took an agricultural course in school.

“I got a job at a greenhouse in Kennett Square, Pa. And I remember the sun beating down of me, and I lasted about a month, so I got a job at the telephone company and worked there for 40 years,” he said.

Costello said he worked for members of Congress on Capital Hill and got to know a little about agricultural policy.

“I’m a history buff,” he said “so from practical standpoint, I have no experience.”

Both remember the black curtains and the blacked-out headlight era of the early 1940s, when the country turned to “victory gardens” and local farmsteads to feed itself during World War II — Jordin, as a young boy vacationing in Bethany Beach with his family and Costello in Atlantic City. Costello’s father was an air-raid warden on their street.

They also relish the history in the fact that that they live across Pennsylvania Avenue from the Bethany Beach Loop Canal, where most people would end up after a train ride to Rehoboth Beach and a boat ride to Bethany, often starting out in Pittsburgh or other nearby cities.

“We’re building on the concept of old Ocean View farmers who came daily on horse drawn wagons,” explained Costello. “Transportation was really problematic. Vacationers came on boats and didn’t have transportation when they got here, so hucksters were great. The idea that stuff had to be brought in — hence the farmer on the wagon (for the logo). Families stayed all summer, so they were dependant on that kind of relationship for food.

“While we don’t want to create that need,” he continued, “we can recreate the personal relationships between the families that are here and the farmers. We want to create a mutual understanding, so the farmer knows what the customers want and the customers realizes what he grower goes through. That conversation is wonderful.”

The two recently went out and met most of the markets’ farmers for this year — many of whom have much history and have been in the area for generations — something not lost on the history buffs.

“We are a sell-what-we-grow kind of market,” said Costello. “We are producer/grower dominated. Nine out of the 16 farmers are within 10 miles of Bethany Beach,” he said. “And it’s not for nothing that we have people with historic farms involved — it helps with our look!”

Along with most of the farmers from last year — Bennett Orchards, Chapel’s Country Creamery, Davidson Exotic Mushrooms, East View Farm, Lavender Fields, Magee Farms, Parsons Farms Produce, Good Earth Market and Organic Farm, Hudson Farm, Hudson Produce, Johnson’s Country Market and Kogler’s Old World Breads — the market will see three new additions: Blueberry Lane Farms in Frankford, Greenbranch Organic Farm in Salisbury, Md., and Rainbow Farm, also in Salisbury.

The market will be held on Sunday mornings from 8 a.m. to noon, starting this Sunday, June 29, in the PNC bank parking lot at Garfield Parkway and Pennsylvania Avenue. It will run for 10 weeks, until Labor Day weekend.