It’s easy to envision next weekend’s events when Todd Gannon (pictured above), a former Worthing City Commissioner, starts to explain the plans he has for the Pumpkin Festival at Riverview Christmas Tree Farm. The event will take place the first and second weekends in October and include pumpkin picking, free inflatables, an old west camp, fall crafts, fall desserts, a pumpkin slingshot, hay rides, farm animals, food vendors, coffee, a beer garden, South Dakota Wine and even a television so you won’t miss your Sunday NFL games.
Gannon and his wife Shari recently purchased this thirty year old business from Bill and Darlene Keizer. Gannon has a long history with the Christmas Tree Farm, nestled near the banks of the Big Sioux River about five miles east of Highway 11 on 278th St. His parents’ home is just the second place down, he explained. Gannon said he started working for the Keizers in 1996, and worked nearly eight years while attending high school and college.
After his summer work while in school, Gannon went on to pursue several careers. With a college degree in agriculture and a masters in business he was an ag teacher for several years before taking a corporate job in the agricultural industry. Interestingly, he did his student teaching under Jim Wilson at Lennox High School. After a while in the corporate world, Gannon decided starting his own business would allow him to get more involved with the things he enjoyed; such as helping with FFA and coaching high school football in Canton, which he has been doing for the past eight years.
In July 2014 he started his own seed dealership and that February started a Spray Foam business. Around that same time, Christmas of 2014, he jokingly told the Kaizer’s, “If you’re ready to sell, give me a call.”
The Keizers did reach out to him. Gannon recalled, “I was doing my first spray foam job, my basement; I was just getting ready to spray and then Keizer calls and says, “you want to buy?’”
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