WORLAND – "It's a time to get family together and revitalize tradition," Ed Keller said of his family's generation-old recipe for making sugar beet syrup.

Last Saturday a conglomerate of family members and friends got together and spent the day joking and laughing while partaking in their tradition. The Keller's have had the sugar beet recipe in their family for generations and while they haven't made a batch since 2001, Keller said they plan to do it every year now.

The efforts to keep the tradition going took a lot of players and Keller said his family's recipe couldn't have been used without the sugar beets from Webber Ag, the jars to preserve them from Worland Farm and Ranch, Mark Stiver for the use of his dump truck trailer and P and S Machine for their donated equipment.

Keller said the process is simple. The sugar beets have to peeled, cut and washed twice. From there, they're cooked on high, and then are mashed like potatoes before being juiced. To juice, Keller said they press down on the sugar beets to squeeze out a juice that is boiled down in an evaporator to create the sweet sugar beet syrup.

In total, Keller said it takes three hours to create a batch of sugar beet syrup. The process is a family tradition and Keller said, "I've been doing it since I was a kid and we've always done it to get family together."