State Fair Is Iowa’s Great Summer Reunion

The Iowa State Fair is Iowa’s great summer reunion, a place where old friends get reacquainted and new friends are made.

If there’s a better State Fair in the country, you’d be hard-pressed to prove it to the one million visitors to the State Fairground on the east side of Des Moines. It’s an event ripe with tradition and punctuated with surprises

Where else would throngs of people:

-Jockey for position to pay homage to the state’s biggest pig?

-Gawk at art made from hundreds of pounds of butter? To sample a variety of food perched on a stick?

-Cheer on youth from across the state who congregate on a stage in the center of the fairgrounds to display their talent? American Idol? Who needs it? We Iowans were doing this a half-century ago, thanks to Bill Riley. And we’re a lot nicer than British badboy Simon Cowell.

-Only eat it if it comes served on a stick

If you’ve never been to the Iowa State Fair — and research shows that there are two or three grumpy Iowans who have never given it a try –than you know all that already.

But if you’re a newcomer or an out-of-stater, than all of this is still a mystery to you. What can be the allure of a 150-year-old event held on a dusty piece of land during the hottest month of the summer?

We’ve heard of people who attend the fair and come away disappointed. But for every one of them, there are at least 50 who give the event high marks.

The best way to see the fair is with a seasoned fairgoer, someone who spends all 11 days on the fairgrounds every year  and knows everything there is to know about the gala, someone who not only knows how many ribbons are given out (850,000), but can tell you the city where they’re manufactured (Mt. Pleasant) and the name of the company that fills the order every year (Staats, Inc.).

Someone who can point out the cheapest lemonade on the fairgrounds (just north of the Horse Barns that are located on the south side of the fairgrounds. Watch where you walk, though, or you might step into a steamy souvenir that you can’t scrape off your shoe).

Someone whose visited every attraction, even braving the crowds and the heat with a pair of preschoolers in tow, and can map out an itinerary for every age, every interest.

The Iowa State Fair is a shopping mall of opportunities (and we’re not just talking about the gizmos for sale at the Varied Industries Building (which is air conditioned, by the way, a great place to pick up some free stuff while escaping the mid-day sun).

It’s a place where you can meet the next president of the United States, learn about the rich variety of fish in our lakes, rivers and streams, participate in a mock trial, teach your kids more than you ever thought they’d know about farming, and sample a variety of wines from Iowa’s growing number of wineries.

It’s all there, plus a whole lot more. We’ve enjoyed compiling this information because it’s reminded us of good times past and good times to come.

So let www.iowastatefair.me be your guide. We’ll be updating this site all week and looking for help from an army of citizen journalists, particularly the active group of Twitterers who attend the fair. So lurk and learn or add to the conversation. And have a great fair.

– Jay Wagner