Tenderloins, handshakes and one last fair for Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds
The women knew Gov. Kim Reynolds would be at Chuckies.
Normally, this group of friends meets up for a picture with Gov. Reynolds and their annual, “How ya doin’?” at the Iowa State Fair’s historical walking tour, but, this year, the kickoff was rained out.
So the women headed to Chuckies’ red food truck on the west side of the fairgrounds. They’ve followed Reynolds’ schedule enough to be savvy to her first day must-dos.
And on top of that list? Breaded pork tenderloin in hand by 10:30 a.m. The governor likes to be Chuckies' first customer if she can.
“They were waiting for me there because they knew that I was going to be at Chuckies right after the opening day ceremony,” Reynolds says. “… I thought that was sweet. She was like, ‘We knew where to find you.’”
Gov. Kim Reynolds meets with Iowans as she walks the fairgrounds during the Iowa State Fair.
“I’m a little bit predictable, I guess, when it comes to the Iowa State Fair.”
No Iowa governor in modern memory has made the fair as much of a part of their tenure as Reynolds, who prides herself on being on the grounds every day gates are open.
And while she has plenty of scheduled appearances or visiting dignitaries to fill those days, her staff also budgets in lots of stoppage time, so she can pose for photos or shake hands or have a quick conversation.
From her own childhood to her kids’ to now onto her grandchildren’s, generations of the Reynolds’ family have made enduring memories on the fairgrounds, which explains part of her admiration for the annual summer get-together.
But as a politician, she says, the State Fair represents a little city, nearly 100,000 strong, that pops up every day with a new set of residents. So the “Why fair?” of it all is actually pretty simple: What better way to meet constituents than to go to where they already are?
“There’s nothing else that I could do where I could interact with as many Iowans that I have the opportunity to interact with here,” she says.
“And so many of them,” she says, “have never had an opportunity to meet a governor, have never had an opportunity to get a picture with a governor or to shake a governor's hand, and they're just so appreciative of that.”
A self-described “people person,” the fair fills her cup, Reynolds says. But this year’s brew was “bittersweet.”
After deciding not to run for governor in 2026, this year marks many lasts for Reynolds: last Condition of the State speech, last legislative session, last Terrace Hill Easter egg roll and, of course, the last fair.
“I'm trying not to think of it as being the last time because I'll be back,” she says. “It'll just be different.”
Gov. Kim Reynolds meets with Iowans as she walks the fairgrounds during the Iowa State Fair.
Walking ‘the same path’
Growing up in St. Charles, a rural enclave about 40 minutes outside of the metro, the Reynolds family would make a long day out of their annual trip to the fairgrounds.
Her mom packed lunch for the crew: chicken salad or fried chicken and potato salad, some vegetables. And they’d leave before the sun came up to get there early — really early, she says, literally one of the first people in line — for good parking.
They’d hit the grounds for the morning, return to the car for lunch and head back for the afternoon.
“We were able to get one fair food, so I spent a lot of time trying to decide which one I was going to get,” Reynolds says. And often the decision came down to either a frozen chocolate-dipped banana or a Wonder Bar, and ice cream bar rolled in nuts.
Her mother always picked pineapple whip, so, now, Reynolds has a helping in tribute.
“I don't leave the fair without getting it,” she says.
And her and her two brothers always had to play the fishbowl carnival game: throw a ping pong ball into a small fishbowl and leave with a goldfish all your own. (The goldfish was rarely long for this world, she says.)
“We kind of walked the same path almost every year,” she says. “But I think that's what you do, too. It's all the traditions that are built into the Iowa State Fair that you look forward to every time you come back, reliving those.”
With her grandkids she made a trip down the Giant Slide a tradition, photo of them mid-scream a must to cap off the ritual. But being Grandma can be hard when you’re also governor, she says. They get frustrated when she stops and stops and stops for photos or hugs when the family is moving between rides or concessions.
“In fact, they're always saying, ‘Can we just go with Grandpa?’” she says.
“He's moving forward. You're not.”
Gov. Kim Reynolds meets with Iowa FFA officers during a visit to the State Fair.
Memories from her office
Since taking office, the event Reynolds most looks forward to at the fair is the Charity Steer show, which her predecessor, Gov. Terry Branstad, started in 1983 as a fundraiser for the Ronald McDonald House.
The event — which has raised some $6 million over the decades — sees celebrities pair with 4-Hers to prep steers for a show and then guide them around the ring — no easy task for the untrained.
“I just have so many memories of the young Iowans whose steer I've showed,” she says. “Meeting them and getting to know them and how much work they put into getting this steer ready.”
And being governor does not mean an automatic Blue Ribbon, she says with a laugh.
“I've been doing it for 16 years, and this is the third time I've won,” she says. “So, you know, it's rare.”
Reynolds was in office for another rarity: when the fair closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, marking just the second time in the event’s history that the Grand Concourse went dark. The other was between 1942-45 when the military used the fairgrounds for supplies and storage.
Gov. Kim Reynolds meets with Iowans as she walks the fairgrounds during the Iowa State Fair.
When the fair returned in 2021, Reynolds says people were extra grateful “to get back to some normalcy and just celebrate.”
And she’s recently extended her Giant Slide tradition to include some of the state troopers, too.
“We haul that rug up to the top of the big, Giant Slide, and we lock arms and we go down the slide,” she says. And a picture is still a must.
Despite the fair being known as a political duty for those seeking higher office, Reynolds had to be goaded to remember anything adjacent to politics.
There’s flipping pork burgers alongside a stream of candidates, she says, with the grill so hot and smoke so thick you can barely breathe. And the first year she did The Des Moines Register Political Soapbox – a morning she’d be hard-pressed to forget even if she hadn’t spoken because the evening before, her husband, Kevin, went to the emergency room with appendicitis.
She spent the whole night at the foot of his bed, wrapped up in his extra blanket.
“I surely got to go home and change clothes, but I went right from the hospital, being up all night, to the Soapbox stage to, you know, give my remarks,” she says.
“There's a lot of things you can't control in that environment. But I think that's also a good test, you know, to your ability to be able to manage some of that and to try to get a message out with a lot going on. And, so, maybe being really tired was a blessing in deciding.”
But, generally, she says with a shrug, she’s at the fair for the regular Iowans.
“I don't mean that in a hokey way. It's just the truth.”
She would have loved to have met Sec. Pete Hegseth, for example, when he was at the fair, but she attends the military band concert every year on the fair’s Veterans Day, and that was a commitment she wasn’t willing to break.
“Those things come first, and so I didn't make it over.”
Gov. Kim Reynolds meets with Iowans as she walks the fairgrounds during the Iowa State Fair.
No one’s 'walked more steps than her'
Reynolds loves the fair so much she volunteered to stamp attendees’ commemorative passports for a few hours at the Iowa kiosk at the Great American State Fair in Washington, D.C.
Not a media stop, she stresses, she manned the booth.
Visitors were shocked to see a sitting governor, she says. But Reynolds was equally as taken aback by how many people had already been to the Iowa State Fair.
And when she invited those that hadn’t, she says the response often was: “It’s on my bucket list.”
For Jeremy Parsons, the fair CEO, Reynolds has been a supporter in shoe leather — “I doubt there’s been a governor that’s walked more steps out here than her” — and in leveraging state funds to pair with those they raise.
During her tenure, he says, the state provided the capital needed to begin important renovations on the barns and the 4-H building.
“It's always interesting when you talk to counterparts from other fairs, and they talk about, ‘The governor is visiting our state fair today,’” he says. “And we're like, ‘Our governor is always here.’”
“I would tell anybody who even wants to become the governor of Iowa, they better plan to be at the fair every day because Gov. Reynolds has raised the bar,” he adds. “That's the expectation.”
Making the decision not to run for another term was incredibly difficult, Reynolds has said. And the fair is one of those times in office she’ll miss terribly.
Not just because she gets to talk to Iowans, but because of the stories of collaboration that seem to pervade the grounds, whether in the livestock barns, the cultural displays or among the vendors.
Gov. Kim Reynolds smiles as she sits for an interview with The Des Moines Register.
Listening, the governor says, is “a reminder to see the goodness in people.”
“Sometimes we live in such a divisive, negative environment, and just with social media and with just all of that 24/7 news, and you just forget,” she says. “I think it really helps you kind of step back and really see the good in people. People helping people. People working together. People just having a good time, and I think we need more of that.”
Overall, she says, the fair has “made me appreciate this state even more.”
She’s not sure what next year will look like come August. She knows she’ll be back at the fair.
And she also knows she won’t ever see the fair from this perspective again, behind the scenes and totally emmeshed in all the inner workings.
But she hopes that at the very least, she won’t hold her grandkids back anymore.
This report was syndicated from USA Today Network via Reuters Connect.
