Behind the Blue Ribbon

[Hannah Pratt] It's exhilarating.

[Sarah Pratt] There is a buzz and an energy. Everything kind of vibrates.

[Jeremy Parsons] A long time ago, the Iowa State Fair crossed that line from being an event to being part of life.

[Chelsea Theobald] It's the biggest arena to show on in Iowa. You've got the biggest bull. You've got your big boar. You've got your big ram.

[Eric Campbell] There's so much to see here. You can't do it in one or two days.

(Jeremy pumps mustard onto a corndog.)

[Jeremy] And I'm going to make a mess. 

[Grace Pratt] It's our home away from home. This is where we are in the summer.

[Eric] Iowa is a great state fair. I won't miss any unless I absolutely have to.

(fireworks popping)

[Announcer] Since 1927, Kent Feeds has been dedicated to commercial producers, farming communities and animal lovers. A family-owned American company, we strive every day to enrich the lives of those who raise and care for animals. Learn more at kentfeeds.com.

(A large banner shows two women with a cow made of butter, it reads, "Sarah Pratt, Sculpted 2006-present.")

[Sarah Pratt] You're in this 120-year-old building plus. The building is brick, un-air conditioned, so it's very warm and humid. If you were to walk down the hallway leading up to the back door of the butter cooler, you would already get a sense of the smell, which is like maybe a little bit of aged cheese. Some of us are more sensitive than others. I'm pretty used to it.

(In the back hallway, Sarah changes her shoes and warm attire before entering the cooler.)

It is 42 degrees in the cooler. No, it's pretty cold. But on a warm day like this, it takes a little while before it starts to affect you. It feels good at first.  There's a little room outside of the cooler door that is air conditioned to 60 degrees and that helps temper the butter to just the right temperature. It ends up being very much like clay.

Salted, salted butter. The last time I remember getting all new butter was in 2005. There's a huge difference between old butter and new butter. So, if you have really good, old butter that's really perfect, it is smooth, greasy but you don't notice that at first, it's silky almost. Sometimes when I'm baking, I'll be making pie crust and then I'll just rub it into my hands and I'll realize, "oh, I think I was supposed to wash my... I'm not sculpting, I need to wash my hands."

I am oftentimes thinking about the skeletal first, like where the ribs are and where the shoulder is and then muscles and then tissue and then details. So, it's almost like building it, you start with the skeleton and you build it up.

There's no perfect dairy cow. You're going to have the one that has the amazing udder, but maybe its back sags a little bit. So, even if it's not the perfect, it's probably more realistic, in fact.

(Sarah and her daughters sit at a picnic table at the fairgrounds.)

[Hannah Pratt] What do you mean? You're never going straight up it like that, like an elevator.

[Sarah] Well, you kind of do because you load on the ground.

[Hannah] Yeah, but you're not going vertical like an elevator goes directly up and down. You're more like an escalator kind of at an angle. But I got you now.

[Sarah] That's true, I did not preface that.

(Sarah being interviewed.)

The theme for this year's fair is Fair Fever. One of the little taglines was something like, catch the fever, the only cure is thrill rides, favorite fair foods and entertainment. And so, we were like, how can we tie into that? Well, the Sky Glider is celebrating 50 years.

(Sarah and her daughters sit at a picnic table at the fairgrounds with paper and pens.)

The platform is approximately three feet off the ground. The window, the viewing window is five feet. So, today what we'll decide is do we have the Sky Glider hanging really low to the ground and the ground becomes not the ground? Do we paint the ceiling blue?

(laughter)

[Grace Pratt] Or the floor?

[Sarah] No? Don't paint the ceiling?

(Sarah being interviewed.)

And we're like okay, that's great, but who is going to ride in the Sky Glider? The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and Steve Higgins were celebrating ten years. And Steve Higgins has been on our list for the last ten years just for that reason because he grew up in Iowa. It was like, "aha!" This is the perfect thing. They love fun. They are all about whimsy. They are the perfect duo to be in the Sky Glider.

One of the things that I have found in my own artistic process is to be fully immersed in whatever it is I'm sculpting.

(Sarah, Hannah and Grace walk through the fairgrounds and arrive at a Sky Glider seat.)

That's what you would do, you would lean on it? Would you wave at people? You'd probably be looking down, right?

And so we started out by coming to the fairgrounds and literally walking around the Sky Glider.

[Hannah] I like the yellow ones. I feel like we should sculpt a yellow one.

[Sarah] Oh! We could sit in one. Sitting at the same time before your knees get knocked out. And then you're like, whoa, that moment right there. But your feet have to touch the ground. Keep your feet on the ground. Sit down.

(laughter)

(Sarah being interviewed.)

Sketching, trying to brainstorm. If we had no parameters, what would this look like? And then scaling it back.

(Birds chirping)

(Sarah, Hannah and Grace sit on a blanket under large trees on a farm.)

Our 3D models aren't going to be to scale this first time. Perhaps we just take whatever medium you want to use. Hannah, if you want to use the clay. And we're just going to work on designing in kind of a 3D format. We start to make scale models, we use pipe cleaners and form core board and paper. And then, you have to make it a reality. So, then ideas become okay, the cooler had parameters and that sort of thing.

So, then we start to take our big dreams and scale it to what is possible. Butter sculpture is very whimsical, right? What I love about it is it's unexpected. But I also love really diving into what I'm going to sculpt and immersing myself in it and taking it very seriously, but not too seriously.

(birds chirping)

(turkey gobbling)

(goat bleating)

(A young boy grooms a brown and white goat in a barn.)

[Jack Theobald] This is Bunny. I just started working with her and walking her and they're just fun to do stuff with and play with.

[Jake Theobald] We live in Muscatine, Iowa, been here our whole lives. We work at a pig farm. It's a farrow-to-finish unit, so we've got sows and we've got finishing pigs. Then we also have a little bit of a goat herd on the side and then some oddball animals too.

[Jack] Jump!

(goat bleating)

(crank turning)

(Two young boys pet a white and brown donkey.)

Hank is two years old, two or three years old. He likes to try to nip at you and eat your shirt.

[Chelsea Theobald] This year we will be exhibiting what we hope is the biggest boar of Iowa. And then we will have two 4-H market hogs out there also.

[Jack] Hey, piggies!

[Chelsea] This will be Jack's first year showing at the state fair.

(Boy climbs into a pig pen.)

[Jack] Come on, guys! Out! I'm going to give them a bath.

[Chelsea] You know, in our line of work we've been able to bring our kids with us since they were old enough to walk, maybe before they could walk, they've been coming to work with us at times.

[Jack] You gotta wake up early. It's a dirty job. I walk them, feed them.

[Chelsea] The kids have been lucky enough to be able to go in and help wean pigs, breed sows, farrow pigs. I don't think there's a task on the farm that either one of them haven't really done.

[Jack] This one is Tammy. He's a Tamworth.

[Jake] Jack was breeding pigs as soon as he could walk, even going to kindergarten explaining to the teacher and all the kids how you AI sows.

[Jack] Come on.

(trees rustling)

[Chelsea] He's pretty willing to jump in and to help anywhere that needs some help. He really likes to drive a skid loader or any motorized vehicle. He also enjoys going up to my dad's house and playing with the cows and putting hay out and being grandpa's little assistant up there.

(engine running)

(birds chirping)

[Jack] Over here is Big Joe and most of the chickens. I can't go in there because he gets a little crazy. My dad's going in there to get him up.

[Jake] I think we got Big Joe in about 2019. We were buying gilts from a genetic supplier and we needed some boars also. So, Joe grew up as a teaser boar, running in front of sows as we were AI-ing. Joe, let's go! Wake up! Then usually when a boar gets too big for his crate or he's getting too old or too cranky you just get rid of them. They go on the cold truck. But Joe always had a good temperament. He was always nice to be around. When he got too big for his crate, he just went down to live in the GDU with all the incoming gilts and put him on a self-feeder and he just kept getting bigger and bigger. And we decided hey, why don't we just try to get him even bigger and take him to the state fair?

[Announcer] As we mentioned earlier, we only have two boars this year.

[Chelsea] I definitely got teary eyed several times during the contest last year. It's so exciting. It's just so surreal that you get to be there and you get to do this and you get to be a part of this.

[Announcer] Big Joe is being shown by ten-year-old Jack. Raise your hand, Jack.

[Jake] Once we got in the ring, me and Jack walked him all the way up the scale and stuff.

[Chelsea] It was pretty neat to see all the people that turn out. It's always standing room only around there.

[Announcer] Settle down, scale. Let's call it 894 pounds.

(crowd applause and cheering)

[Chelsea] He eats a lot of food. His grocery bill is rather high. We've asked most of our family and friends to go through their cupboards and get all the expired food out. From there he gets eggs. He loves eggs. Like the sight of an egg makes him excited.

[Jack] How many? Two? Three. Four.

(chickens clucking)

Crack it in his mouth. That's what grandpa does.

[Chelsea] Lard. Cake mixes. Jack likes stuff like Pepsi or root beer in there. Mayonnaise, he likes mayonnaise a lot.

[Jake] Everything you're told not to eat is what we're feeding Joe.

(chickens clucking)

[Jack] He likes doing what he's doing right now, sticking his whole nose in the water and making waves.

(chickens clucking)

[Chelsea] Right now it's just kind of the calm and the cool before the storm and the week before it will get a little bit more real.

(intermittent chatter)

(A group gathers in a conference room on the fairgrounds.)

[Darwin Gaudian] Alrighty, 11:00 and I think we'll call this meeting to order.

[Jeremy Parsons] Curtis Claeys.

[Curtis Claeys] Here.

[Jeremy] Darwin Gaudian.

[Darwin] Here.

[Jeremy] I'm here. Jo Reynolds.

I have two roles at the Iowa State Fair. Obviously the title is CEO, General Manager. If you dig into Iowa Code technically, I'm Secretary of the Iowa State Fair Board. But really, I think I have two jobs. One is a caretaker. I'm the 13th Secretary of the Iowa State Fair Board. That means there were lots of people before me and there are going to be lots of people after me. My job is to take care of the fair for this time period that I'm here, leave it better than I found it so then I can hand it off to the next person.

I think one thing that we're really trying to promote this year is the fact that admission to the fair remained the same as in 2023. My second role really, especially during the fair itself, I view myself as a supporter and encourager. We've got 70 full-time staff. We supplement them with 1,600 fair-time people and my job is to really make sure they know that they're appreciated and do whatever I can to give them the resources to be successful in their jobs because if they're really good and successful at their jobs, that means the fairgoer has had an incredible experience and that's really why we're here.

[Darwin] If nothing else, I'll have a motion to adjourn. All in favor say aye.

[All] Aye.

[Darwin] Meeting adjourned.

(Jeremy speaks to group of people in a building on the fairgrounds.)

[Jeremy] Hello? Good afternoon. Hello, everybody. In case you didn't know, we have a fair starting in less than a month. Some of you look excited and some of you look terrified.

(laughter)

We're going to do two things today. We're going to talk about new things at this year's fair and then we're going to talk about ways we want you to be contagious, how we want you to spread the fair fever. 

(Jeremy being interviewed.)

The Iowa State Fair when you look at our mission statement, ultimately, it's a celebration of all the very best things of Iowa. We want to make sure we're a place that people want to be. And I think one of the ways we become that place, the place where people want to be, is that they have a good experience while they're here. 

(Jeremy speaking to the crowd.)

The fair is not a prison. What that means is none of them are required to be here. Every single fairgoer made a choice to come to the Iowa State Fair. It's not a requirement. In all reality, we could open the fair on August 8 and no one could show up. It is not guaranteed. The accounting department just fainted. 

(Jeremy being interviewed.)

We have to be a place that every Iowan feels like they are welcome. We have to be that place. That's our job. We hope, though, that when people come that they are able to see, again, those kids excelling at the highest level. They're able to see their neighbors showing off some skill that you had no idea. Or forget about everything during a Grandstand concert. We hope we provide those experiences, but yet still provide that commonplace. And we hope that's what the fair provides. 

(Jeremy speaking to the crowd.)

Thank you for your time and we will see you, well we'll see you around. So, see you at the fair.

(applause)

(Sarah, Hannah and Grace prepare to enter the butter cooler.)

[Sarah Pratt] We'll get in, we'll make a plan once we're in there, and then I might come out and get a few more supplies. Sound good? All right. 

The best part is working with my family. And that is really, for a lot of people, their fair experience too, right? They come with their family whether they're camping or they're coming to see projects. I feel like that, I get to do that too.

[Hannah Pratt] Growing up it never crossed my mind that it was strange or weird because mom was doing it before we were born. So, my entire life it's always been, yeah, my mom in the summer sculpts the butter cow.

(Door squeaking as the women enter the cooler.)

[Sarah] Lights, butter, action! All right, so you're going to work on Jimmy's face? Do we need to take the tiny hats off? 

From a young age they were very interested in digging their hands in. They have always been artistic and interested in creative pursuits, for sure. There have been times where they wish they didn't have to come when they were maybe nine years old and they wanted to go swimming and they didn't want to come and chase their brother around. But they've always been interested in the art process of it.

[Grace Pratt] We officially became apprentices at 14. But we were helping a little bit before that too with washing buckets or...

[Hannah Pratt] Odd jobs. Finding tools. Picking out mold.

[Grace] Now we kind of have our own roles in what we work on. I have tended to do more of the face and head and sometimes I'll do hands.

[Hannah] And I'll take care of most of the, if not all of the clothing that goes on there because I'm studying costume design at UNI. So, working with the fabrics there and learning how they would drape on a person helps me know this is where a crease or a wrinkle would be in the fabric.

[Grace] I'm a studio art major with an emphasis in sculpture, very much influenced by the sculpting that I started to do here.

[Sarah] We are fully collaborative. So, their ideas and mine are meshing together. And I am completely energized in a collaborative setting, so it is so delightful to have those thought partners as we're wrestling through what is it going to look like? They are teaching me what they know. I am teaching them what I know.

[Grace] We like to mess with mom a little bit while we're in there too.

[Sarah] Wait, it's too early in the day to have butter in your hair.

[Grace] The past few years we've taken to making these little top hats in the butter and then without her noticing we try and put them on the heads of all of the people and characters that we're sculpting. And then she'll turn around and everybody will have a hat on and she'll be like, "what is happening?" There's always an air of playfulness going on behind the scenes.

(laughter)

[Grace] It was already there! It was already there, right?

[Hannah] It was.

[Grace] My action was unprompted.

[Sarah] Oh my goodness!

(laughter)

(A couple cars drive on Grand Avenue through an empty fairgrounds.)

[Eric Campbell] Each one of these stands have a different name. This one is Little Train. This one is Slide. This one is Bird's Nest. And then my other ones over there, that's Double Bing Corn Dog in front of the Grandstand. The tenderloin stand there is on Rock Island. And we know exactly where they go to the foot pretty much. I've been doing this since I was born. I was actually — my birthday is on August 10 — I was four days old when I was here. So, the fair was a little different dates back then. But I was in a hot dog sticking semi at four days old. So, I've pretty much been out here my whole life, I guess. I started in the cafe at nine years old bussing tables. And I probably worked here for two to three years. And then I moved to, I think, the hot dog sticking room and then I went to a stand by the time I was thirteen, fourteen. 

Is he working? Or hardly working? Or hardly working?

[Woman] Yes.

(laughter)

[Eric] Campbell's Concessions basically started in the 1920s. It was Little's Concessions back with my great-grandparents, Katie and Phil Little. If you're related to us, you work. There's not a lot of option. Even if you don't think you want to work, you're still working. We're going to make you work one way or another. We'll find a spot for you. All three of my sons, they've only known this. They've been working since they were little. They've lived out here. Nobody gets to just skip over one job just because they're related to Eric Campbell or whatever. 

(Two men shovel ice into 20 pound bags.)

You're going to change grease just like everybody else. You're going to set the stands up. You're going to put your sleeves and roll them up just like everybody else. Working with your family and you normally don't get that time with them. Now, do we call it quality time a lot of times? I don't know. They laugh about it. 

(Inside a food stand, The Depot, a neon sign reads "Calvin Campbell, 1947 to 2023, "I am still the owner!")

Working with my mom my whole life, my dad, I saw them every day. This is my first setup. I didn't even see him driving on a golf cart. He passed away this fall. Those are the strange sequences. 

What are you going to do with the green chair? chair?

[Woman] It's staying right there because that's where your dad sat every time.

[Eric] Okay, I was just asking.

[Woman] That's your dad's chair.

[Eric] He didn't like anybody sitting in his chair so they had to make a sign for him. 

(A green chair with a sign on it that reads, "Do not sit in this chair. Reserved for the owner!!!")

I'll still probably be here even, if I even make it to 80 years old. But I'll be in here in some aspect. All I'm doing is just showing and trying to give my kids all the tools that they need to run a successful business down the road. Sometimes people ask me, you don't seem very excited. I'm like yeah, I'm excited. This is my 51st fair. I'm 51 years old. It's a lot of fairs.

(laughs)

(Eric exits a concession stand.)

Does this start tomorrow?

[Worker] A couple hours, bro.

(The sun begins to rise over Grand Avenue on the fairgrounds.)

[WHO Radio] 6:09, you're not dreaming. 68 degrees under partly cloudy skies at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. Thursday, August 8. It is time, my friends. It's day one. Good morning to you.

[Jeremy Parsons] First thing Thursday morning it's always beautiful.

(A pig yawns in its pen.)

Hearing livestock, hearing kind of people move in, that quiet hum before the fair gets started. 

(Jeremy drives a golf cart through the grounds.)

It's kind of like Christmas morning, like so much anticipation, yet at the same time not really knowing what's going to happen. 

When you think about an 11-day event that literally takes 12 to 15 months, 12 to 18 months to plan, I don't think people always understand that.

Hey, Tony!

[Tony] Good morning! Happy fair!

[Jeremy] Same to you!

It really takes everybody at all times. And there's ebbs and flows. You think back to our full-time staff of 70. For some of them really the fair for lack of better words is a relatively quiet time because all of their work was done several months ago. You think back to our vendor team who deals with our concessionaires and commercial exhibits. Well, they started in January that process of booking those vendors. Of course, constantly making all of this happen is our maintenance department. If it was not for the maintenance department, we would not have a fair. 

(Jeremy driving the golf cart.)

Lots of great comments on those pots. This turned out really nice. 

(Jeremy being interviewed.)

If you're a livestock exhibitor, somebody put all those wood shavings in the barn, somebody got those arenas ready, and that is our amazing crew that works year-round to really make the fair happen but really make our 400-acre property shine throughout the year.

(A group of people are gathered in front of the Sheep Barn.)

[Len Lloyd] ♪ Well, I'm proud to be an American, ♪ ♪ where at least I know I'm free. ♪ ♪ And I won't forget the men who died, that gave this ♪ ♪ right to me. ♪ ♪ And I'll gladly stand up next to you and think of ♪ ♪ them today. ♪ ♪ For there's nowhere on Earth I'd rather be, than ♪ ♪ the fair in Des Moines, Ioway! ♪

(crowd cheering and applause)

Thank you.

[Jeremy] Well, good morning, everyone. It's an honor to stand before you at my second fair as CEO of the Iowa State Fair. This fair was constructed with you, the fairgoer, in mind. 

(Jeremy being interviewed.)

We spend all year, a lot of blood, sweat and tears literally getting the fair ready. And then to think about the fact that somebody is going to come to the fair with their family and they're going to create some memory that is going to last forever. And I had a part in that. I think that's really the coolest part. Our world needs a lot more places where families can come together and do something together. And that's what really makes the fair unique is no matter your age, your demographic, or no matter who your family group is you're coming with, you're going to find something here that is going to interest everyone.

(In front of the Sheep Barn)

[Gov. Kim Reynolds] I officially declare the 2024 Iowa State Fair open for fun!

(crowd cheering and applause)

[Jeremy] And so the fact that the fair can be one of those places that families can come together is definitely pretty cool.

(Jeremy walks the fairgrounds.)

[Jeremy's dad] Ready for another year!

[Jeremy] Yeah! Here's my youngest. How are you?

[Jeremy's son] Good.

[Jeremy] You woke up early this morning?

[Jeremy's son] Yes, very early.

[Jeremy] Yes. Have you had any fair food yet?

[Jeremy's son] No. We want to. We're trying to.

[Jeremy] I'm going to get a corn dog with mustard. Give you those.

[Jeremy] It's a tradition I had in Spencer and I try to have a corn dog by 9am that first morning of the fair. That's my official fair start.

[Jeremy] And now I'm going to make a mess.

[Eric Campbell] You can tell from the top of the hill by Grandfather's Farm when you come down, it's kind of like the sun rising, you just get to see what's coming in. It kind of gives me a feel. And I can pretty much tell by the top of the hill what day we're going to have.

So, my pavilion here is where everybody will start checking in. Good morning, Tony. Good morning.

Good morning, Tracy. How are you today?

[Tracy] I'm doing good. How are you doing? Saturday morning.

[Eric] It's going to be a busy day. 

The stands basically have to be open by 8 to 9:00. The contract's not until 10. But people want a corn dog for breakfast. So, we try to hit the cattle area first so that Cattle Barn corn dog opens at 8:00, 8:30. Then the park area opens at 8, 8:30. Then Grand Avenue when the sun comes up and it's slower out there. That one might straggle in at 9:30. And then we're up until midnight the fair closes, the majority of people. Then I have a night crew that is cleaning the floors of the depot. And then we have our grease guys. And that takes an all-night process. Once we get through the first weekend, that's the challenge. We get through the first weekend without too many curveballs, too many incidents, situations, we know when we hit Monday we're almost there.

(Trucks and trailers line up as the sun rises over the fairgrounds.)

[Woman] Pull up as far as you can.

[Ernie Barnes] We're doing the 4-H check in. Pigs can start coming in at 2:00 this morning. They've got until 10am this morning to be here. We're going to put 1,500, 1,600 pigs in the barn here in the next, well, overnight or in 8 hours we're going to try and put 1,600 pigs in the barn.

[Man] 48328.

[Chelsea Theobald] It takes us two to two and a half hours to get out there. So, normally when we go, we kind of make it a two-day trip minimum.

[Jack Theobald] What are you doing? Making new friends?

[Chelsea] The people that our pigs are riding out with this year, they like to go out in the middle of the night just purely for fairgrounds traffic because there's virtually zero. And fairground traffic is so much worse than the rest of the Des Moines traffic.

[Devin Maxwell] Can you take him? Justin, your tam barrow, tell him where you want him.

[Chelsea] We've been walking these pigs for months, getting them prepared, getting them calmed down, slowed down so they don't get too excited about much.

(Jack humming and singing.)

(pigs snorting)

(Inside the Agriculture Building.)

[Child] Oh look, the Sky Glider! That's actually a work in progress.

[Woman] Do you see the butter cow?

[Sarah Pratt] People who come the first few days of the fair get to see the process and us putting those last details on. It takes a little of the pressure off and also serves as a little sneak peek for the fairgoers. The lights in the cooler are so bright that it's hard to see through the glass. And there's also a little bit of a glare. And people stand about 18 inches away because there's a railing.

[Hannah Pratt] You don't really see them or notice them and the fans are so loud you can't really hear what's going on out there. Every once in a while, we'll get people knocking on the glass and we're like oh yeah, they're back there and they're watching us do this.

[Grace Pratt] It's like, put up a sign, don't knock on the glass, it scares the sculptors.

(laughter)

[Sarah] Hannah and Grace love music. And so, they'll be blaring like show tunes from their favorite musical. There's been a couple of times that they've forgotten that there's people out there and they'll be doing that and then like, "oh!"

(laughs)

♪ Who put the glad in gladiator? ♪ ♪ Hercules! ♪

[Sarah] One of the things about the fair that I delight in is seeing how the next generation is infusing their energy. I see that in my own kids and what they bring.

(At the Livestock Pavilion.)

[Announcer] Good morning! Who's excited to be at the great Iowa State Fair?

(crowd cheering)

(Inside a concession stand.)

[Grant Campbell] Boston, how many ice cream cones are you going to eat today?

[Boston] Six.

[Grant] It's funny, a lot of these younger kids, they probably don't get to be around this food all the time. So, they really take advantage of being able to have free ice cream and French fries and pickle spears and all that stuff. Then they tell me their stomach hurts and I'm like huh, I wonder why?

[Eric Campbell] We have a lot of part timers. Our workforce is about 500 people, strong 500. Most of the stands take between 7 to 8 people to run. Some of them take 25 per stand. We go through two semi loads of corn dogs and basically, it's about 60,000 pounds per trailer of corn dogs. Iowa loves corn dogs. 

Lemonade, hundreds, thousands and thousands of gallons. We go through about 250 canisters a day. We do have two locations that we sell homemade tenderloins. We dip it in batter milk, cracker crumb it and you put it on a sandwich and you can't go wrong with a homemade tenderloin. And that's an Iowa thing. 

Pineapple whip, it's a big part of the Iowa State Fair. It's an older tradition that was started back when they had dairy issues between World War II. They had to come up with a product that didn't have dairy in it. 

It's not just a Campbell's corn dog, it's the location too. There are people that tell me the corn dog in front of my Cattle Barn right here, that's the only one they go to, even though it can't be hardly any different than the one that I have on Grand Avenue or the one up by the Amana Colonies or by Ye Old Mill. We keep just trying to figure out how to do it better and better and better. The majority of people that come, they know Campbell's Concessions or Campbell's corn dogs for sure.

(A truck pulling a trailer enters the fairgrounds.)

[Man] Coming that way!

[Jake Theobald] With the big boar, we'll leave at 5:00, 4:30 in the morning, get up there early. It can be a little overwhelming at times.

(A large boar exits the trailer.)

[Chelsea Theobald] I think the other hard part is people also don't understand the capabilities of the big boar. He could really run you over.

(The boar is led through the barn.)

[Jack] Ope, there he goes.

[Jake] As slow as Joe looks, when he wants to move, he runs. There's going to be some anticipation. Are we going to be the big guy this year? Are we going to win?

[Chelsea] We normally don't know how many boars are out there until you get there. We haven't weighed Joe to know where he's at. I mean, what do you do? He's only going to be as big as he's going to get. We've done everything in our power to give him all the tools to get bigger. So, we'll just see what goes on.

[Announcer] Good afternoon. We're pleased to have all of you at the 2024 Iowa State Fair Largest Boar Contest. For the first time in three or four years we've got seven entries and they all showed up.

[Jake] Last year there was two, us and one other one. And that scared me a lot because I was thinking oh, is it dying? Is nobody going to be bringing boars up anymore? Is there a future for it? Will there be a big boar contest in ten years? I don't know. I hope so.

[Ernie Barnes] He loves milk. As a matter of fact, he drinks five gallons of milk a day. How would you like to buy that for him?

[Chelsea] Pigs are raised differently now. You don't have to have a boar to breed your sows anymore. You can buy semen online. It's a lot easier than keeping a boar around.

To have a big is a pretty big accomplishment. And I just feel like there's just not a lot of people that have, that are keeping their boars and maintaining them to be a bigger weight.

[Ernie] Our next entry is Big Joe. As you can probably tell from the t-shirts. He's from Muscatine County exhibited by Jack Theobald and family. He is a home raised boar. He has been eating 20 pounds a day. His favorite food is two dozen marshmallows a day. He's very gentle and likes to run, loves soda pop in his feed. This is last year's reserve champion boar. And he weighs 940 pounds, 9-4-0.

(applause)

This entry is exhibited by Brian and Trisha Britt. They're from Monticello. He's a big eater. He has a big attitude. You'll have to give us a little time here because most of these boars go where they want to.

(crowd cheering)

1,420 pounds.

[Jack] There was a lot more than last year. And I think they set a new record too.

[Chelsea] I think we got fourth overall today. And we'll go home with Joe. He'll live out his life at our farm and eventually move onto higher grounds probably. We had fun. We made lots of memories. We had a great time. Yeah, you don't get these memories every day.

(Jeremy enters an office and dials a number on his phone.)

[Jeremy] Hey Scott. Hey, I just talked to Alan Brown. I've heard comments off and on about a continual problem we have here. Of course, the odor in Animal Learning Center. Is there like exhaust fans? Okay, I don't think they're on. 

My fair day starts a lot with meetings in the morning. As Secretary to the Board there are daily meetings with the Iowa State Fair Board, keeping them apprised of what is happening on the grounds as well as daily staff meetings with our senior leadership team and then a lot of time out on the grounds. I feel really strong that the worst place I could be during the fair is in my office. And the best place I can be is out on the fairgrounds.

All fairgoers really care about when it comes right down to it is, is it easy to park? Are the bathrooms clean? And are there places to sit? 

Obviously with the fair, if we don't get something right the awesome thing is we can always fix it the next year. So, we need to make sure we know what those things are. And so that involves me being out and really seeing those things and also interacting with fairgoers. 

(Jeremy speaking to a fairgoer.) If our job is to showcase Iowa agriculture, we shouldn't make it hard. We shouldn't charge extra money for people then to see it. 

Iowans are passionate, sometimes weirdly passionate about the Iowa State Fair. But we want to make sure that their voices are heard as well. 

(Jeremy speaking to fairgoer.) Hey, not a problem. Thanks.

In elementary school there was a project you always have to do — what do you want to be when you grow up? It was in the fall right after the Iowa State Fair so of course somebody has to be in charge, right, or those types of things. So, a letter was written from me as part of this school project to Marion Lucas, who was CEO of the fair at the time. He responded to that letter and did the whole interview and then really, he just opened the door for me to come, sometime next year when you're at the fair come see what I do. And so, then I spent time working here even through college, loved my summer job so much that I needed to find a job so I could still keep my summer job. So, I taught school for a while. And then left the education field, some time at the Missouri State Fair, twelve years at the world's greatest county fair, the Clay County Fair in Spencer, and then the opportunity to come back here kind of full circle.

I feel like I really do have one of the best jobs in the state of Iowa getting to lead the charge here at the Iowa State Fair. And so, for me it's a career. But more than that it really is a passion. It's something that I get to do to make a positive impact on the people of our state and that's something I don't take lightly for sure. 

(Jeremy walking the fairgrounds on a rainy day.)

Oh, there's Sarah!

[Sarah] Hey! Good to see you, Jeremy. You know what, it's never too rainy for the fair.

[Jeremy] There is a sense of belonging here. The fairgrounds I think is a sacred place in some ways. It becomes this place, much larger than an event. We take that for granted here in Iowa because not every fair gets to experience what we do here. And that really is what makes the Iowa State Fair so special. Go ahead. You are welcome.

The most exciting thing I think we do at the fair is we provide that showcase. This is a chance for you to show off your very, very best. Maybe it's a blue ribbon quilt, maybe it's a blue ribbon steer, maybe it's the Bill Riley Talent Show. Really when you think about it, the fair is a celebration of all that is best about Iowa.

[Grant Campbell] Since my job is walking around and making sure that everybody's okay in the stand world, Saturday I broke my own record of the most steps that I've taken and Saturday I had 40,000 steps walking around the fairgrounds. So, that was a record for me. And let me tell you, that next day I felt it in my calves.

(Grant approaches a concession stand.)

Good morning. How's it going? Doing alright? Selling a lot of lemonade today or corn dogs?

[Worker] A little bit of both.

[Grant] A little bit of both.

All of the family members here, you start at the bottom and then you just work your way up because you have to know how to do everything because if you don't know how to do everything then you can't teach and show other kids what the right way is. And if you haven't done it then it's hard for other people to learn from you.

This is the ice cream stand with all the ice cream girls. How's it going, girls?

[Girls] Good.

[Grant] Machines running alright?

[Girl] Yep.

[Grant] Yeah. Got enough stuff and everything?

[Girl] Yeah.

[Grant] Technically I started when I was fourteen. I'm 25 now so this will be like my eleventh fair working.

Well, holler at me if you need anything, alright? I will be around.

I've been out here full-time now for about five years. What I do is kind of HR, checking the kids in, going around to the stands and making sure that everybody is where they need to be and everybody is happy and no problems, just a problem solver more or less.

What's going on guys? How are we? Doing alright? Need some sugar water? Ben Baxter, are you making a sugar water run down Grand? 

This is my younger brother Gage.

[Gage] Hi.

[Grant] So, he's the manager of the stands out here on Grand. So, he pretty much just walks in between them, make sure that they have their product and if anybody's got questions, customer service, that kind of stuff is his job. And just making sure everybody is happy and getting everything that they want.

[Eric Campbell] It really takes the whole village and our family world is a village to make it work. I couldn't do this without everybody else.

[Vendor] Do you need a lemonade? Corn dog?

[Eric] We don't want to lose what my grandfather and my mother and my father started and we just try to build on top of that.

[Vendor] Do you need a corn dog, sir?

[Eric] Now, is there times that we just want to give up and say geez, is it really worth working this hard and doing what we do? We don't know any better.

[Grant] Honestly this is my favorite part of the job is being able to cook. For some reason it actually is very therapeutic. You get in your zone and just cook and really not have to worry about a whole lot besides just making sure that you're getting fresh dogs out and tasting good.

[Customer] Where do we order?

[Grant] Right here, sir.

I could never see myself behind, sitting behind a desk 9 to 5. I wouldn't trade this for anything.

[Vendor] Thank you for coming to the fair. Ketchup and everything is down 15 steps that way.

(indistinct chatter)

[Emily Wynn] Who's ready to sculpt some butter today?

This is Sarah Pratt, she's our butter sculptor. She does the butter cow.

(Sarah speaks to the crowd.)

[Sarah Pratt] So at the Iowa State Fair, the very first butter cow was sculpted in 1911. It was sculpted by an artist named John Daniels. He sculpted here for just a few years and then they recruited a man who was originally from the Midwest. His name was J.E. Wallace and he had a different kind of training leading up to his butter sculpting career. He was a taxidermist. My mentor, Norma Duffy Lyon, her training was mixed with science, anatomy and also sculpting. 

I got started because I really wanted to be a farm kid. My friend Carrie had dairy cows. She told me about how they could come to the Iowa State Fair and they even got to stay overnight in the barn with the cows at that time. I was fourteen and we talked her parents into letting me also come and help in the barn and I was so excited. 

(Sarah being interviewed.)

I thought, this is the beginning. I'm going to be a dairy farmer. Farm girl dream come true. But I knew nothing about taking care of dairy cows. So, they just said, "okay, help wash the cows." I used too much soap, made a huge mess. Okay, how about you just walk them to the milking parlor. The cow kind of caught my foot and I stumbled one way, bumped into a stroller. That was it. 

(Sarah speaks to the crowd.)

So, I was sent to the butter cooler to help Norma Duffy Lyon, who was my friend Carrie's great aunt. 

(Sarah speaks in an interview.)

For that first year I was completely unprepared. I didn't come to the fair to work in a 40-degree cooler or in butter. I did bring closed toed shoes and long pants for working in the barn. Wrapped up as warm as I could and Norma lent me a few sweatshirts and we got in the cooler. I washed buckets, I handed butter, I softened butter, really anything she needed, which turned into eventually a fourteen-year apprenticeship. 

(Sarah speaks to the crowd.)

You all can tell your story of how you learned to be a butter sculptor, right? That is going to be your origin story. I came to the Blue Ribbon Kids Club event and I learned how to butter sculpt.

(Sarah sits at a table with the children.)

This is what I do. But the problem is, when you're trying to also go to the fair and you're trying to keep your clothes kind of clean, it can be messy.

[Kid] We were trying to do a pickup truck but it didn't work so we made a snowman.

[Sarah] You know what, that is perfect. 

(Sarah speaks to the crowd.)

We recycle all of the butter, which is so important. We'll put your butter in buckets and it will go into next year's butter cows. 

(Sarah speaks in an interview.)

I love the fact that Norma's hands have touched the butter that we're still using. It's really a community of hands that have all worked this butter. At the end of the fair then, that all gets scraped off of the frames and armatures and packed into five-gallon buckets and sent to Des Moines Cold Storage where it is stored in a freezing locker for the entire winter and then back out to us the next July.

(Fairgoers enter the Swine Barn.)

[Announcer] This is your final call for class 15 crossbred market barrows to the ring. Final call, class 15 crossbred market barrows to the ring.

If you are in class 20 crossbred market barrows, just be hanging out for a little bit. We will be taking a short break for our judge to go and judge the champion Hampshire.

[Chelsea Theobald] I have been going to the Iowa State Fair since I was little. I spent a lot of time showing out there. All the years I was eligible to show up there, I showed at the state fair. So, it's really neat to be able to pass onto our children to be able to go out there and for them to see that kind of stuff. 

Do we need to wash rack him?

[Jack Theobald] Yep.

[Jake Theobald] All year long you worry about the future of agriculture. But yeah, I see Jack and see our other kids around us, kind of worry is there really a future? But then you go to a fair and then you see the kids that are involved and then it makes you a little bit more hopeful for the future, I guess. It's just kind of like a big family. Everybody knows everybody, everybody takes care of everybody, everybody's animals.

[Chelsea] Remember, look at the judge. Pig between the judge and you.

[Jake] And I think that's what the best part about the fair and showing is, is everybody that's there and how everybody works together.

(Jack stands with his pig waiting to enter the ring.)

[Girl] Are you excited?

[Jack] He's going to run, straight out of his pen.

[Girls] Yours is? Oh yeah.

[Chelsea] For the kids to get to go out there and experience that and get to stay for the show and see just how it works and see the amount of competition that goes on out there. 

Use your knee. Drive him straight, Jack.

And be able to actually be part of it and walk on those green chips and get the shirt that's seven sizes too big for you when you're showing out there. It's just all part of the great experience that gets to go on.

[Judge] I think we've got a couple of pretty nice barrows out here.

[Chelsea] I think for us because Jake and I have such a passion for agriculture, it's easy for us to pass this onto our kids.

[Judge] Good job.

[Chelsea] It's easy for us to be excited and to pass that excitement onto them because this is what gets us excited. This is what keeps us going every single day.

How have you felt showing today? Were you nervous? Were you excited?

[Jack] Yeah. Nervous.

[Chelsea] Now, do you have higher expectations for next year of what you're going to do next year?

[Jack] Yep, I'm going to get an actual place. And I'm gonna have four pigs next year.

[Chelsea] You think so?

[Jack] And two goats, zero lambs and a cow.

[Chelsea] We're very fortunate to be able to give the kids opportunities like this. And we don't have to do very much to get them excited about it because if they get excited about it, we just take it and we run with it and we hopefully can fill their cup and give them a dream.

[Chad Kurovski] Alright, tearing down the butter cow and all the sculptures, right?

[Sarah Pratt] Yep, all of them. All of them go back in the buckets.

[Chad] The saddest day, the end of the state fair.

[Sarah] But it's nice for me that you do it so I don't have to do it.

[Chad] It's tradition.

[Sarah] One of the great things about the Iowa State Fair is it is about community and about family.

[Chad] Sarah and I are first cousins.

[Sarah] This is my eighteenth year sculpting, so you're at 17 years of tear down?

[Chad] There you go.

[Sarah] Holy moly!

[Chad] I think I'm a professional now.

(laughs)

[Sarah] Another ear fell off already. It's just tearing itself down this year, how about that? 

If there is ever a time where it's like oh, I just want to go to bed or this is too hard or I'm getting too old or my elbows hurt, being together, doing it together is the thing that lifts me. I love being with my family.

[Chad] Pretty soft.

[Sarah] That gets me through all of the achy joints and the long days. And it's just fun.

[Hannah Pratt] At this point in my life, I don't think I can see a future where I'm not participating in at least some form in this tradition. Getting a chance to be creative with lots of our family and collaborating with Grace and collaborating with mom is just an amazing experience to have.

[Grace Pratt] I think if any of us had to do butter sculpting on our own, it would be really hard. I don't know what I'd be doing in the summer if it's not this.

[Hannah] It's almost like engrained in our identities almost. It's just like, it's what we do.

[Sarah] The first thing I wanted to be was Indiana Jones. That was my dream job. One of the folks at my high school was like you can't make any money being an archaeologist, so just be a teacher instead. When Hannah was in middle school, she was asked to do a project about an Iowan and she picked me. She asked me what I wanted to be, so I told her well originally, I wanted to be an archaeologist, I wanted to be Indiana Jones. And she's like, well mom, he was a teacher and then he'd go on these adventures and you get to do the same thing. You get to be a teacher and you get to have this really cool adventure in the summer where we get travel to do butter sculptures other places and we get to be part of this tradition here in our home state of Iowa. And we get to do it all together. And so, it's even better than Indiana Jones because he was like kind of a solo bachelor, right, that was all on his own and I get to have my family too.

(engine running)

(crickets chirping)

[Eric Campbell] How do I get in the Iowa State Fair? How do I run a concession? And how do I make it profitable? You have to be organized, you have to have detail and you have to have a vision. It doesn't matter what food you have, it doesn't matter, you put your effort and your energy into it, those three things, if you're not organized and detailed and have a vision on exactly how you're going to do it, it's probably not going to work. We've had people here for five, six, generations come to the Iowa State Fair. They're here for a family tradition. We want to give them the best experience that they can possibly have. Make sure that the customers are treated right. If I wouldn't eat it, don't serve it.

[Grant Campbell] How did it go today? Good day? Get home safe, alright?

[Eric] Not very many people get to be in my situation. There's probably no concessionaire out there in the United States that has and does what we do today, what we've done in the past. There might be a couple, but not really. Nobody has a warehouse on the fairgrounds. Not everybody has all the stands that we have.

[Grant] Alright Miss Ella, you guys ready to be done?

[Ella] Yes, sir. Closing time.

[Grant] It's closing time.

[Eric] And we've perfected it down to a science. I don't know if I'll ever retire. I'll be here some aspect of it. They might not want me here. I don't know. We'll see.

[Grant] Have a great night. Get home safe.

[Eric] I've made my bed and this is the bed I've chosen. And this is the only thing I know. I think that's the other thing, it's the only thing I know.

[Jeremy Parsons] I hope when people think of the fair, they think of pride, pride in our state and all of the accomplishments that are showcased here. I hope they think of the fair as a place that provides hope in the world. There's a lot of negative things going on in the world and I hope when they come to the fair, they just experience kind of a renewed faith in humanity for lack of better words.

(Laughter as children slide down the Giant Slide.)

I think of the fair as being the showcase for our youth and they look at the kids and say, you know, the world is going to be a better place and the fair has been the place where we let them shine.

[Announcer] Let's give those kids one more big round of applause, please.

(applause)

[Jeremy] When you really dig under all of this, the ultimate tradition at the fair is that tradition of coming to the fair with your family. So, as long as we keep that tradition alive of making sure the Iowa State Fair is a place where all families, of all ages, of all types are welcome. If we keep that in place then all of those other experiences just build on that. That's what we have to protect.

(fireworks popping)

[Announcer] Since 1927, Kent Feeds has been dedicated to commercial producers, farming communities and animal lovers. A family-owned American company, we strive every day to enrich the lives of those who raise and care for animals. Learn more at kentfeeds.com.