Familiar exhibits and transportation featured at the Iowa State Fair

Save steps getting to the fair and find your car at the end of a long hot day with help from the Shriners. The organization’s volunteers are giving golf-cart rides to and from fair parking lots, and donations by grateful riders will help support 22 burn hospitals the Shriners support all over the country. The volunteers drive from the start till the last day, and proceeds go to the fund Shriners use to bring patients and families to their medical centers. “Skeeter” says the donations during the fair usually total about 50-thousand dollars. Crowds will climb a steep hill to view Iowa History, as they’re finding once again this year at the state fair’s Pioneer Hall. Regina Pirtle is supervisor of Pioneer Hall, the oldest building on the Iowa State fairgrounds, and she says there’s always something old that’s new. That includes a broommaker. Pirtle says Iowans of all ages climb the hill to visit the displays of antiques, tools, crafts and perennial favorites like the winners of the “Tall Corn Contest.” She manages a store 50 weeks out of the year, and takes vacation time to run the building put up well over a century ago. Pirtle’s been superintendent of Pioneer Hall for eleven years.