Comments on: The Quick 10: 10 Bizarre Contests at the Iowa State Fair

By: Brooke

Brooke — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 20:27:55 +0000

I think the Iowa state fair has a lady that does a different butter carving every year. She did a life sized Tiger Woods one year. Here in Minnesota they have a pageant for young women called “Princess Kay of the Milky Way.” It’s essentially a fariest of the fair pageant, but anyway all of the contestants have their likeness carved in butter during the fair. You can go and watch them sitting in cooler with the sculptor getting their bust carved. They get to keep the butter head after the fair. The MN State Fair, and state fairs in general are AWESOME!

By: Alice

Alice — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:11:50 +0000

Cow pies (once they have dried in the sun, of course) are quite hard and do not have much of a smell. When the pioneers first moved into the prairie regions, they used buffalo chips (similar to cow chips) to make fires because there are few trees. Apparently, buffalo chips burn cleanly without much smoke or smell, although I have never tried it myself.

By: beth

beth — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 14:07:00 +0000

Regarding the grocery bagging — it’s such a hot topic that they even covered it last season on “Curious George” (where George covers for an injured bag boy to win the bag olympics!)

By: Rachel

Rachel — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 12:26:34 +0000

Our marching band did a cow-patty bingo one year. It took all day because we had apparently acquired the one cow in the universe that happened to be constipated.

Our local 4-H fair is this weekend and I can’t wait to take my 2-year-old to check out all the animals! I don’t think there will be a mullet contest even though we ARE in New Jersey. Pity.

By: Amauriel

Amauriel — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 04:21:15 +0000

In my corner of the world, Cow Patty Bingo is extremely common as a fundraiser. It’s basically the same thing as mentioned above, but they actually will announce over fair loudspeakers things like, “Cow Patty Bingo winner was B-4! B-4, please come to the fair board office.”

Also, does the Iowa state fair not have a butter carving contest? We here in Ohio have a cow carved out of butter with her calf every year on display.

By: PartiallyDeflected

PartiallyDeflected — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 03:07:49 +0000

The term “Meadow Muffin” is also acceptable. Horse dung is totally different and known in the country as “Road Apples”

By: stacy

stacy — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 02:55:36 +0000

Huh! Thanks for the cow poo education, Mag and Dave. Makes sense. :)

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 02:40:42 +0000

Mag beat me to it; cow poo is usually a bit, umm, loose, so when it hits the ground it flattens out on its own. Let it dry in the sun for a few days and you’ve got all kinds of chip flippin’ fun.

By: Cheryl

Cheryl — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 02:38:33 +0000

I went to an agricultural university and we actually studied for and sent teams to weed identification contests! Makes me want to go to the Fair and try my luck.

By: emilybird

emilybird — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 22:21:20 +0000

One of the frats at U of I held a cow poop raffle for charity this past year and the cow got loose. I don’t think they’ll be allowed to do it next year.