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Hello everyone, and welcome back to another evening of Iowa State Fair highlights.

I'm Bill Riley.

One of the things I love about the Iowa State Fair is discovering just how many different talents people have.

Some are practical.

Some are surprising.

And some are unlike anything you'll find anywhere else.

On tonight's show we'll see who can blow the biggest bubble in one of the fair's sweetest competitions.

We'll come face to face with some fascinating reptiles at Snakes Alive!

And we'll watch talented dogs show off the instincts and teamwork that make them such valuable partners on the farm.

But first, we’ll get started with a thunderous display of horsepower.

It’s the Outlaw Truck and Tractor Pulls.

Welcome to the Elwell Family Park, where fairgoers have an insatiable appetite for this event every single year.

I'm Paul Yeager.

Thanks for joining us.

Rainy weather in previous days had fans holding their breath that dirt conditions wouldn't be up to par.

But a break in the clouds have given these hot rods the traction they need.

All right, folks, are you ready?

Here we go.

First up, it's Diesel 3.0, and it's Jason Wayman.

He's driving Megatron out of Novinger, Missouri.

His distance, 344.45’.

Evan Breheim.

He's behind the wheel of “No Limits” out of Sedalia, Missouri.

He doesn't know when to stop until that red flag comes up at 352.82’.

And your first place pull here in Diesel, Skyler Leeper, “Legal Limits.” The driver out of California, Missouri, drives from coast to coast for a 361’ even.

Well, hey, you know what?

Coloring can be a nice distraction for the kids, but oh wait, wait, wait, let's not get too distracted.

Let's get to the Light Super Stock and Tom Scheffler, “Just for Fun,” out of Hancock, Iowa.

His distance, 272.45’.

Ryan Bosen.

He's “Under Construction” out of West Point, Nebraska.

Bosen knows how to go.

He knows how to hold the sound down.

Look at that hammer go.

286.48’.

And now it's Jeremy Paulsen out of Schleswig, Iowa.

The “Hawkeye Hooker” knows how to pull it.

Look at him go.

307.84’.

There's your winner in the light super stock.

Let's move to modifieds now.

Cameron Nevaes.

He's got some “Cotton Candy.” That's pretty sweet out of McAdoo, Texas.

315.55’.

Loading up and letting the “Bull Buster” go.

Donald Nelson out of Cat Spring, Texas.

That's a 320.89’ pull.

And your first place modified, Wayne Bunnage, “Stronger than the Storm” out of Ellery, Illinois.

He rides this one.

329.09’ for the title in modified.

Oh, the art of truck and tractor pulling.

Let's check out another masterpiece here.

Oh, you know all about “Rattrap.” You've seen him before.

It's Marty Seleman out of Garden City, Missouri.

Look at that pull, 333.033’.

Hold on to that number.

Remember that one.

Aww, that's cute.

In 2nd place, Nathan Breheim “Breakin’.. Sedalia, Missouri.

This one is a great looking pull.

In fact, it looks really close at 333.034’.

Just 1/1,000th of a foot difference.

And then in first place, it's Toby Vanderpool, the “Chain Stretcher,” out of Indianola.

He stretches the distance to go 339.69’ for first place in the Pro Stock 4x4.

Now it's on to the Super Farm.

Third place, Mark Roberts, “Spanky's Toy,” out of Scribner, Nebraska.

331.74’ is the distance there.

Second place, another familiar name here at the Iowa State Fair.

It's Dave Rozeboom.

He's driving “Red Rock.” He's rocking and rolling from Rock Valley, Iowa, for a distance of 340.72’.

And then it's the Deere of Allen Andrews.

He's on “Dakota Deere” out of South Dakota.

And a distance of 347.60’ for first place.

Super far.

That's just a handful of the highlights from this year's Outlaw Truck and Tractor Pulls.

We hope you enjoyed it.

We certainly did.

I'm Paul Yeager.

Have fun at the fair.

[Dana Lain Formaro] Amid the hustle and the bustle of the Iowa State Fair, there's a beautiful reason to slow down and take a closer look.

Because the competition here is to see what you're really looking at.

Tell us about the flower identification contest.

Why flowers?

[Barry Laws] Well, it's something we've be.. quite a few years, and a lot of people enjoy doing it.. so we bring in 12 flowers of different varieties.

And then we have people try and guess the names of them.

They're not all hard.

There's maybe a couple thrown in there that might be a little bit more difficult, but most of them are pretty easy.

We do throw in a tiebreaker, that's number 13.

[Dana] Okay, very cool.

And are these all Iowa native flowers or are they kind of from all over?

[Barry] Not necessarily native, but they're pretty much flowers that'll grow in Iowa in most people's gardens.

[Dana] What are the rules for the contest?

[Barry] Well, there's not a lot of rules.

You can't use your phone.

You can talk over with your friend and discuss and determine who has the most correct answer.

The contest starts when the building opens, and we post the names at 4 o'clock in our department.

[Dana] So I saw you ladies were doing the Flower Identification Contest.

Is this your first year entering?

[Girl 1] Yeah.

[Dana] Same for you?

[Girl 2] Yep.

[Dana] Awesome.

So why are you guys intereste.. [Girl 1] We like nature and wildlife and stuff, and we have a big garden, and we've kind of grown up doing the garden stuff, so it's just interesting to us, and it's sort of our passion.

[Dana] Very cool.

So you guys entered the contest.

How do you feel your chances are?

[Man 1] I feel pretty good about them.

I mean, I work at a greenhouse, I think I got most of them, but some of those really rough ones kind of — that just had different leaves and stuff, I was like, uh.

[Dana] So do you think you'll study and try again for next year?

[Man 1] Um, yeah, I would de.. might look up what the other ones were that I was like, “Uh, I don't know.” I might have got like the first, like the common name maybe right, but yeah.

[Don Hummel] I like to watch the way that the dogs handle the cattle.

If they manage to keep them together and don't rush in and split them apart and stuff.

I like just to watch the dog and see how he handles the situation.

So to start off, handler's gonna come out here with his dog.

He'll pick up the cattle, come in behind the cattle, pick them up and start moving them this way.

The idea is to come straight down towards the handler.

You can use whatever signal.

You can use hand signals, you can use voice signals, you can use whistle signals.

Some guys do it in Spanish, some in another foreign language.

He has to get all of the cattle around the pen.

So now he's gonna take the cattle and try and go straight out to that walkthrough, and they have to go through the center.

They cannot go around the outside.

If they go through the center, each of them scores 10 points.

Then they're going to go over to the barrel, and there all 3 of them, in order to get 30 points each, have to go around the barrel, and there's no retries on the barrel.

And the handler can work either side of this entrance.

He can, he can start here and stay here, or he can go to the other side, but then once he establishes himself there, he has to stay on that side.

And he can help the dog a little bit.

They're gonna bring the cattle down through this chute.

And again, once again, he gets 10 points for each animal that comes through.

And then he's gonna have the dog bring them down here to the gate.

And the dog has to be the one that actually brings the cattle into the pen.

Once he's got them all in, then he can shut it.

And that's when his time stops.

Well, I think there's some excitement if something happens and the cattle don't do what the dog wants them to do.

And I think if the dog can do it quickly and get them through everything, you know, in a small amount of time, that they like that.

They enjoy— kind of like car racing, you know, the faster you go, the better they like it.

[Bill Riley] If you enjoyed those talented dogs, join us tomorrow as we head to the farm to learn what it takes to train them.

Now tonight—the Iowa State Fair's food competitions have introduced us to some remarkable cooks and bakers.

This year, one contest honors a woman whose talent, generosity and love of baking inspired generations of competitors.

[Emcee] First place goes to Louise Piper because of the flavor that comes out in her salad.

[Louise Piper] You get a blue ribbon here or there, or even a red, or even a white, because to place in the top 3 in many classes is— and then you're hooked.

[Alison Moon] After Mom passed away, you know, she couldn't do the fair last year, and she's been coming every year for 40 years.

It's definitely her thing, and I know that she would love to have a contest in honor of her memory.

Thank you for coming today.

Really glad to see the pies that people have entered, they look delicious.

Can't wait to try them.

It's green tomato pie because that's the pie that my.. would make me every year for my birthday in September.

You know, you want to use everything in the garden, and sometimes there's an early frost, so you're always out there grabbing everything you can before that freeze comes.

What do you do with green tomatoes?

She would make me a green tomato pie, and I loved it, so she'd make it every year.

So I'm going to try to keep everything in mind with the way she made her wonderful pies for me, and we'll judge them today and find a few winners.

It'll be fun.

Thank you for coming.

[Louise] The closer to the source that you can get your fruits and vegetables, the better product you will have.

[Reporter] It's so great to have this in honor of her.

And what did the fair me.. [Alison] Well, the fair was everything.

She started, you know, way before, like the year before, because she did canned goods and things like that too, so she could — It was always important to her when she did pies and things like that to go close to the source to get the ingredients.

That was her big deal.

So she was always berry hunting, going.. needed to to get something fresh.

And she just loved coming here and competing.

It was so fun.

She said, I learned something every year.

And her friends that she would see when she was here, it's the only once a year that she'd see them.

And they became very close.

.. year and celebrate together while they watched the judging.

It was a great time.

[Karen McKilligan] So I love the fair.

I came to the fair today though just to honor Louise Piper and come to this contest because I worked in this department for about, oh, 10 or 12 years, and that's how I got to know Louise, and I just admired her so much and was so inspired by her.

She's one of the favorite people that I think I've ever known.

[Alison] She entered a lot of things here in different categories, but she was very well known as the pie lady.

She always brought pies.

[Mark Ogan] I think this is awesome for her memory to be able to do this.

I'd never heard of her green tomato pie, and I told my mom and she's like, “Oh yeah, she made that.” And I said, “I never knew that.” [Alison] Thank you everyone for coming today and for all the entries.

Mom would have been really happy.

Family was number one to her, always took first place behind God.

And her fair family was also considered a family, and she just adored all of you and loved coming here.

First place goes to Kay Smith.

This was delicious.

The pie crust is very nice and flaky, and it's well done.

Really reminded me a lot of my mom's pie, and so it gets first place.

[Travis Graven] How big of a bubble can you blow?

We're gonna see who has bragging rights here at this year's state fair Bubble Gum Blowing Contest.

Not as easy as it looks, and you got to be careful because one wrong exhale, you could have a sticky situation.

[Kelly Johnson Rose] They get a couple minutes to get that gum kind of primed up there, and then they start blowing.

This is a very popular contest.

We've been doing this for years, and the fun thing is we see a lot of repeat people every single year.

[Danae Edwards] This is the official bubble gum measurer.

So as people are blowing their bubbles, we come up and measure the width of the bubble, and then it tells us how big their bubble was.

[Travis] Okay, this is measuring diameter?

[Danae] Yes.

[Travis] And what is.. [Danae] Um, probably about 6 inches depending on the age group, but we get some that are pretty big, up to 8, 9, 10 inches.

10 inches if they can really get the juices flowing and the sugars broken down and everything.

[Travis] Now, how hard is it for you to get in there quickly and get this measurement?

Because you probably don't have much time, right?

[Danae] Correct, yeah.

So we have them raise their hands, and when they think they're ready, they have to kind of seal off their bubble and kind of hold it for us so we can get in there and measure real quick.

[Travis] What's the secret to blowing a good-sized bubble?

[Jenna Johnson] Just blow and keep putting air in the bubble.

[Travis] Do you chew bubble gum on a r.. [Jenna] Yeah.

[Travis] Okay, so you kind of practiced a little bit, but you just didn't practice specifically for the competition?

[Jenna] No.

[Travis] Okay, any tips or tricks for those.. want to blow a big bubble?

What would you recommend?

[Jenna] Um, I don't know.

I don't know how I learned, so.

[Travis] First place, you had one way bigger than everybody else.

Do you know how big it was?

[Greyson Breckenridge] 6.

[Travis] Six, okay.

I'm told that was really good.

So what's the trick?

What's the key to blowing a big bubble?

[Greyson] Uh, just try your best, I don't know.

[Travis] You just try your best?

There's no speci.. [Greyson] Not that I know of.

[Travis] Do you practice at all?

[Lason Montz] Uh, I blow bubbles all the time.

I'm always chewing gum.

[Travis] You ever get in trouble for it?

[Lason] I get in trouble sometimes in school.

I blow bubbles and then I got to throw it away.

[Travis] But see, now it's paying off.

You won a blue ribbon at the Iowa State Fair.

[Lason] It's paying off.

[Travis] You've done this before.

You knew what to .. [Makenzie Guyer] Last year I got 3rd place.

This year I won.

[Travis] Okay, we're mov.. [Makenzie] I don't know.

I got most of it on my face.

[Travis] Now, you're Makenzie's mom.

How proud are you of her today?

[Jessica Carl] So proud, especially after watching her .. [Jon Burk] First-time competitor, long-time bubble blower.

[Travis] All right.

What's.. [Jon] A lot of gum.

I got two pieces in.

[Travis] Two pieces in.

All right.

Okay.

Okay.

And any special technique about how you stretch it out?

[Jon] Folding it.

Folding it over.

So stretch a little bit, fold it over, stretch it out.

You're creating layers inside your mouth before you blow it.

[Tanya Judge] It's my fourth 1st place in a row.

[Travis] Fourth 1st place in a row.

Okay, so you know what you're doing.

What's the secret?

[Tanya] I don't really have one.

I don't practice.

It's just for fun.

[Travis] And are you having fun?

[Tanya] I'm having a great time.

[Travis] Oh my gosh.

I didn't see your glasses here that you've got bubble gum all over them.

What happened?

[Tanya] It was a 7.5-inch bubble and it popped on my face.

[Tom Weidner] The name of the exhibit is Snakes Alive.

We put on approximately 50 reptiles from around the world, most of them exotic stuff.

We rarely show anything that's native to Iowa.

We try to bring stuff that's interesting, exciting, colorful.

And then when you're all done looking at all the animals, you can get your picture taken with a big Burmese Python.

[Nick Blay] Like when you're at the fairgrounds, You see, you know, cattle, pigs, horses, sheep, all the stuff.

But then like you walk down the sidewalk and you end up here and you're like, “Whoa, hold up, that's something I'm not like super familiar with.” You get kids that are just out here bouncing up and down because it's like, it's the coolest thing ever.

But then you have the other side of the spectrum where it's like maybe it's the little kids that really want to come in here, but then the parents are the ones being drug in here.

You know, they might tell us right at the ticket window, “Ugh, I hate snakes.” And by the time they get to the end, I get more questions from the parents about, now their curiosity has been sparked.

[Tom] I keep reptiles.

I breed snakes.

I've done this since I was 7 years old, and I'm not going to tell you how far back that was, but that was a long time ago.

I traditionally bring most of my stuff on the Saturday before the fair.

The big snakes, most of the venomous stuff, I bring them in.

I don't want them sitting out he.. to be.

I put them in relatively small cages than what I would normally keep them in, just because we only had so much building space here.

So to get as much stuff in here as we could, we kind of made the cages smaller than I would prefer them to be.

So yeah, at home they've got a lot nicer environment.

So we've been at it forever.

There were 4 of us that started up in the Grandstand, as a matter of fact.

That was 51 years ago.

I have two other partners now that used to work for me out here, and now we've made them— I've made them partners in this exhibit.

And the three of us keep all of these animals.

Zach, who is one of the guys, one of his primary interests is in lizards, so he keeps a number of lizards.

And he's got the Gila monster.

Nick, who is from Columbia, Missouri, is a professor at Missouri University.

He and I are kind of on the same wavelength in what we like and what we keep.

[Nick] It's funny because when people get the opportunity to interact with an animal, they get an appreciation for it.

They make a connection with that organism.

And the reason why I continue to be involved in this is the education aspect of it.

I mean, I'm an educator, so that's kind of like my big kick for this.

[Tom] But I think a lot of people are amazed at what they see inside here because you're going to see things and you get up pretty close to this stuff.

It's just not stuff you're going to see every day.

[Nick] Yeah, they have to earn their rent, but at the same time, they get to kick back for the whole rest of the year and just get ready for the next year.

[Tom] You know, we didn't know what was going to happen when we started this whole thing.

The opportunity presented itself to be out here, so we thought we'd give it a try.

We run several thousand people through this thing every year, so it's a pretty popular exhibit.

And my goal above all is to make sure, hopefully, when you leave here, the next time you see a snake in the wild, you admire it and leave it alone.

[Photographer] All right, guys, look right here.

1, 2, 3, smile.

And keep looking.

[Bill Riley] Behind every ribbon is someone who decided to give it a try.

Let's recognize some of today's Iowa State Fair winners.

[Bill Riley] We've seen some remarkable talent already tonight, and there's plenty more to come.

We'll take a short break, but when we come back we'll meet a competitor who's turned cow chip throwing into an award-winning skill.

We'll cheer on some young bakers as they put their creativity, and their culinary skills, to the test.

And we'll see some determined young drivers power through the Pedal Tractor Pull.

So don’t go away.

We'll be right back with more Iowa State Fair highlights on Iowa PBS.

[Travis Graven] I’m going to hit you with some impossible choices.. Are you ready?

[Man 1] Oh man, I hope so.

[Travis] Butter Cow or Giant Slide?

[Man 1] Oh wow, I'm gonna have to say Butter Cow.

[Girl 1] Butter Cow.

[Girl 2] Giant Slide.

[Girl 3] Giant Slide.

[Woman 1] Butter Cow.

[Woman 2] Butter Cow.

[Man 2] Oh, the Giant Slide.

[Travis] Corn dog or pork chop?

[Girls 2 & 3] Corn dog.

[Man 1] Oh, 100% pork chops.

Love the Iowa Pork Producers.

[Woman 1] That's a tough one.

I'd have to say both.

[Travis] Morning at the fair or night at the fair?

[Woman 3] I would say morning.

[Man 3] Night at the fair.

[Woman 4] It depends on what— If you're working, morning.

But if you're outside, night.

[Man 4] Um, I would say night because right now I'm regretting coming right now instead of last night.

[Travis] Cowboy boots or comfortable shoes?

[Boy 1] Comfortable shoes.

[Woman 2] Comfortable shoe.. [Woman 3] Comfortable shoes.

[Travis] You had to think about th.. [Woman 3] I did, yeah.

Cowboy boots are cuter, but— [Man 1] I'm an advocate for comfortable shoes, but cowboy boots can be comfortable if worn right, so.I'm giving politician answers, aren't I?

[Bill Riley] Welcome back, everyone.

We've already seen that the Iowa State Fair has a way of turning just about any skill into a competition.

Our next story introduces us to a woman who mastered one of the fair's most unusual events and whose record-setting throw is still part of fair lore.

[Pam Sufka] Guess what I found today?

I found my 1982 Women's Cow Chip Throwing Contest first place ribbon.

It's awesome.

I'm never going to misplace it ever again.

[Reporter] Now an event that makes you glad there's no such thing as smell-o-vision.

Steve Givens takes us to the Cow Chip Throwing Contest.

[Narrator] Seeing who can hurl cow chips the farthest has been a favorite fair tradition for nearly 50 years.

And in the early '80s, history was unknowingly made by one young woman in her 20s.

[Pam Sufka-Boyd] My oldest sister and I decided to go to the fair, and we were just meandering up on the hill, and the Cow Chip Throwing Contest was about ready to start and I wanted to do it.

There was a big cardboard box of cow chips and I started looking at them because they were all different sizes and I wanted to get one that was somewhat symmetrical and equal thickness across, but not big.

And I decided by watching previous people that not the Frisbee throw and not the underhand throw was going to be the technique.

The technique was going to be the overhand throw and it went sailing.

And then it continued to roll and hit a car in the front and on the street and then fell over.

[Narrator] Pam's throw was measured at 146.7 feet, a women's record that still stands today.

[Pam] I didn't even know I was a reigning champion until my sister in Oregon heard it from one of her friends on a PBS program.

So then she called me and said, “Did you know you're the reigning champion?” And I said I did not.

I was quite shocked.

[Narrator] Now that she's retired, P.. schedule to compete in the contest again.

We took a trip out to her farm to get some pointers on how to win the cow chip throwing contest.

[Pam] Real cow pies!

Here's a stack of cow pies, the.. I've ever picked from the family farm.

This one obviously is too light, thin.

It's not going to go the distance.

This guy, pretty good, symmetrical, but it's a little bit big.

I would probably take some of this out to make it more of a Frisbee size.

Too light, too thin, not going to be a good champion cow chip.

This one, although, is a little bit bent, it's got a nice weight and it's symmetrical.

That's it!

That's the one I like.

I grew up with a family of 7 kids and I was the tomboy of the family.

And so it was football, basketball, Frisbee out in the front yard and in the street.

91!

[Narrator] Though it's not a requirement to be an athlete to participate in or even win the contest, Pam knows a thing or two about the best throwing techniques.

[Pam] One is Frisbee style.

Not very effective, as you can tell.

Another is the underhand style.

Granny!

Also not very effective.

My personal favorite is the tomahawk throw.

Yeah!

[Narrator] All that said,.. a hill as hard as you can is not that serious.

Like most activities at the fair, you do it because it's entertaining.

[Pam] It's not about winning, it's about participating and having fun.

I think everybody should go give it a fling.

[Paul Yeager] The state of Iowa has a long tradition of manure and athletic competition.

Pair the two together on the famous Pioneer Hall hill, every Wednesday of the Iowa State Fair and you will take part in one of the greatest traditions, the great cow chip toss.

[Emcee] First place at 119 feet, Jesse.

[Paul] Jesse, you just won first place in the men's division.

What's that mean to you?

[Jesse Mason] It means a lot to me.

My family and I have been coming to the fair for the last 15 years, and we partake in some of these events.

This is the first time that I've entered this contest, and I'm just excited.

[Emcee] 42 for Lisa.

42.

[Emcee] All right, Pam.

[Paul] What is unique about this competition?

[Aaron Dempsey] It's fun for everybody.

Everybody can do it— men, women, children.

You know, age doesn't matter, and everybody seems to just love it.

And it has a huge tradition too.

[Emcee] All right, Finley, whenever you're ready.

Nice.

All right, Bailey, whenever you're ready.

Pretty good.

[Paul] Have you entered this contest before?

[Keegan Hayden] No.

[Paul] Why are you entering it now?

[Keegan] Because I wanted to do it.

[Paul] Have you, have you identified which cow chip you want to throw?

[Keegan] The size of a base.. baseball.

[Paul] That is a v.. had help getting entered into this contest.

Who helped you?

[Keegan] My aunt.

[Paul] And I hear she's done it before.

H.. any advice?

[Keegan] Um, not really before, but she has now.

[Emcee] Running start, is that what's happening?

Don't cross the line.

Nice throw, buddy.

40, 40 for Keegan.

78, 78 for Paul.

And our first place winner with 78 feet, the Golden Chip winner, Paul.

[Paul] You just want to not embarrass the network.

I mean, you are the host of a show that's about agriculture.

You got to kind of maybe be able to throw it.

Normally I verbally throw the manure.

This time I had to physically do it.

Now I get to stand in my own manure holding this golden cow pie.

[Phil Dicks] Well, good afternoon, everyone.

We're glad that you're here for the 3 o'clock Junior Chef Championship.

We came up with this idea several years ago in order to feature opportunities of people who we think are going to be our next TV celebrities as part of those experiences.

Young people who are junior chefs and aspire to do something like that in our contest.

[Girl 1] This will be my 4th year in this competition.

[Girl 2] I've done about 2 of them.

[Girl 3] Yeah, 2 years now.

[Phil] We're going to begin today by asking our judges to go over and take a look at the table.

We have 10 entries today.

We're excited a.. that.

Most of the people who do this contest, if not all, have a creative side and an ability to do marvelous things, far beyond often what adults do.

What we want to do is to let you shine and to be that kind of person.

[Samantha Riley] This year my grandma showed me this dessert.

It's a pavlova.

It's a very sensitive dessert, so if you, like, top it too early before you have it, then it'll just, like, melt and collapse.

So it's very important to serve it right away.

[Kaylee Myers] Well, I started this year with apple cider donuts, and I've just kind of always loved the fall vibe coating donuts.

I brought apple-flavored desserts.

So my family always goes apple picking in the fall, and we get these, like, special kind of apples that we make cider with, and then that cider gets all concentrated, and then we put that into the doughnuts.

[Gwen Livingston] I brought molasses cookies.

I made them because molasses is sticky, and I love molasses cookies, and they're just really good with the taste, and the texture is really fine, and it's really moist.

[Patty Hunt] I'm watching my granddaughter's cake be judged today.

She had to leave to go to dance, but she likes chocolate and peanut butter, and that's what she put in her cake.

[Ty Livingston] Stompin' Mad Oreo Muffins, and I made them because I thought they would be nice.

I like the Oreos in them.

I like having the Oreos.

[Producer] What's it been like sitting here waiting for them to get judged?

[Ty] Tough.

[Phil] Judging today will be 65%.

That will be on flavor and taste, creative chef twist appearance of 30 points, and a written story each one will be providing, and there'll be a 5% choice on that.

[Samantha] Uh, it's pretty nerve-wracking not knowing what they're saying and trying to decide if it's good feedback or bad or what they think.

[Patty] Well, every time I see it go from judge to judge, I think, you know, I get excited.

It's fun.

It's fun.

[Producer] So are you in this to win or just for fun?

[Gwen] I think I'm in to win, but also for fun.

[Kaylee] I'm kind of trying to win it.

I've been trying to get more into the culinary world, so trying to step up.

[Samantha] I always try to win, but if I don't, it's still a good experience.

[Bill Riley] Championship night is almost here.

These performers are one step closer after another impressive day on the Riley Stage.

See the Talent Championships, Sunday, August 23 at 8 p.m.

on Iowa PBS.

You don't need a driver's license to compete in this next event - just a little leg power and a lot of determination.

Here's the Pedal Tractor Pull.

[Woman 1] We do 26 a year between June to the second week in October, mostly county fairs.

In September, a lot of fall festivals and celebrations.

[Mikey Cordray] We normally do ages 3 to 12.

The people that are 4 to 12 get to go on to the state level and then the national levels.

If you're on asphalt, it's different than concrete.

Like today, we're pulling uphill.

It's going to be a little bit different than pulling a flat.

[Katie Cordray] I mean, essentially they are competing to see who can go the farthest with the heaviest weight, but we don't want to lose the fun in it.

Go, go, go, go, go!

Keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going!

You're doing great, keep going, keep going!

[Jackson Parker] My technique is I lean with the pedal I push with, which gives me a little— it gives you a little better boost when you're going further.

I got first at the Boone County Fair in July.

And then that was also really fun, but I didn't get interviewed like this.

It was really fun.

This is the first time I've ever done it at the state fair, and this is also the first time I've ever won a trophy at the state fair.

[Lee LeCaptain] Well, I've been doing lumberjack competitions and shows when I was a little child.

I was competing in it since I was about 8 years old.

Did my first show when I was 11 years old and been producing lumberjack shows on my own since I've been 18, 19 years old, touring across the world on 5 different continents.

It started in the United States of America, this competition stuff.

It's truly American.

The very first lumberjack entertainment competitions were the camps, particularly on the East Coast.

They came out of the woods to the festivals about 250 years ago.

And there they always said, well, our guy is the best chopper.

Our guy's the best log roller.

So they decided to have the competitions for the public to decide who was the best.

And then they started doing it in all these festivals and fairs, and it kind of grew from that.

Axe throwing, it took place a long time ago, and the lumberjacks didn't do it for work, they did it to get out of work.

The best axe thrower, when they came out of the camp, they threw at night, had chores.

Well, if he won it, he could go back in the bunkhouse and take a nap and rest.

But the worst one had to clean out the latrines, and you would not want to clean out the latrines for a bunch of lumberjacks.

That would be nasty.

[Man 1] Let's see if he can get a bullseye.

Here's the windup.

It's a good throw anyway.

There's your winner.

Give him a big hand.

And sometimes that happens.

Log rolling, that's a skill that they learned from hopping on the river drives going down the river because they had to— the logs would get stuck and the only way they could do it is pry and poke them out of the jams.

And the guys that did it, they weren't really called log rollers or burlers.

They were called river pigs or river rats.

Log rolling is not easy.

It takes years and years of practice to get proficient at it.

[Connor Birdsong] As a kid, I was only 5 years old and I started taking log rolling classes, which is a big thing around Wisconsin.

So I started doing that and got involved in competitions as a kid.

And then eventually as I grew up, I started doing professional competitions.

I think I'm ranked 4th in the world right now.

So then you can have fun with it a little bit and, you know, get falling in the water.

I think the crowd really likes it a lot.

[Lee] We just have a blast out here.

You know, yeah, it's choreographed a bit, but the fact of the matter is we don't know how every show's gonna go, and it's the unique things that makes everybody smile.

[Gracie Rozenboom] I liked when they went on the logs, yeah.

[Producer] Do you think you .. [Gracie] No, definitely not.

[Lee] I've never grown up.

It's a blast.

I mean, we had 700 people here watching the show.

They all enjoyed it.

They had fun.

They come back and talk to you.

You feel like a superhero every day.

[Connor] They're all real logs made out of real wood, including this one.

The ones in the competitions are a bit smaller, so they roll a lot faster, and there's just less surface area to stand on.

You gotta make it a little bit quicker and just do some fancy things.

So sometimes I'll try to rock the log around and then splash some water and just do fun stuff like that to make it entertaining.

[Lee] In life, we’ve got a lot of stresses now.

And people come and sit down in our show for half an hour, they enjoy it.

If we can make them forget about their problems in life and just have a blast, hey, I'm doing my job.

So I'm Forrest, Forrest Buford.

We're based in Southwest Georgia working for Hot Glass Academy.

We travel all over the country doing live glass demonstrations so that everybody can see this ancient, dying art, or at least not if I have anything to do about it.

We're going to be making a wonderful, wonderful project this morning that will be an ear of corn.

Our furnace is at 2,000 degrees right now, and that is thanks to turning it on about 3 and a half hours beforehand.

That's how long it takes to melt down some premade glass.

We take glass that already exists and throw it in here and melt that down.

So I've got all of these little dishes of color right here, but as you can see, I've got my yellow and my green out for doing the ear of corn.

So we're taking glass and putting it inside of a furnace like this and you heat it up to 2,000 degrees.

That's where glass is liquid.

And we can take that liquid, it behaves like honey at first when it comes out, and we can sculpt, squish, and shape that into almost anything.

If I can come up with a way to pinch, poke, or pull it, it'll turn into what I'm thinking about, hopefully.

And now I have all of the glass I need to make a big, big ear of corn.

Take a second to let it soak in a little more heat, and then we'll turn around and we're going to add the colors to it.

So color is very special.

I mentioned that you throw in different things like metal oxides.

A few examples I like for this yellow.

So this is going to be an ear of corn.

I don't know, you guys think it's ear of corn yet?

Yeah, no.

So we got a ways to go, and what we're going to need to do is use some molding to add in different amounts of texture to the surface that'll help it look a lot more like an ear of corn.

But to marver glass is to press down, squish, and change the shape of the form.

It is this magic material.

It's playing with fire, you know, that little boy kind of thing.

But also the fact that this amorphous lump can turn into almost anything that I want, whether I'm aiming for some kind of extreme perfection or for literally an equally amorphous lump.

And the fact that I can take the time to figure out a process for that, it helps with— people talk about the left and the right brain struggle, the science brain and the art brain.

There's a lot of both going on.. And here in a few moments when it's at just the perfect temperature, we'll stick it down and then we'll start to stretch it out some, and I'm going to cut it free with a pair of shears.

There we go.

So now we've got the leaf number 1 established.

I'll make it even a little bit flatter.

And then we can come in there and pull it out into place.

I've been doing all kinds of things— farm animals, corn, of course, because we're here at the Iowa State Fair.

So now we've got our corn where it'll sit on the table.

So we got to run it off to our oven now, and where it's— where it's going to cool very carefully tonight.

So that'll be in there for about 12 hours, but that's how you do some corn, guys.

[Bill Riley] That brings another evening of Iowa State Fair highlights to a close.

We hope you've enjoyed spending part of your night with us.

And remember, if you'd like to watch any of tonight's stories again - we've made it easy to watch whenever you'd like.

Whether you're catching up on a favorite story or watching for the first time, you can find all of our Iowa State Fair coverage wherever you connect with Iowa PBS—anytime.

Tomorrow night, we'll wrap up another week of Iowa State Fair highlights with one more hour of unforgettable stories We'll mark the 100th anniversary of a competition that's been raising voices and drawing crowds for generations.

We'll watch utility crews put their skills to the test in the Lineman Rodeo.

And we'll close out our week by celebrating the achievements of 4-H and FFA members at the Sale of Champions.

Thanks for joining us tonight.

One of the things we've been reminded of this week is that talent comes in all kinds of forms and the Iowa State Fair has a wonderful way of celebrating every one of them.

We hope you'll join us one more time tomorrow night.

Until then, I'm Bill Riley.

Have fun at the fair.

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