Serving up history at the Iowa State Fair

8/3/2022

Long before the days of funnel cake and deep-fried Twinkies, church-run dining halls dished out home-cooked meals at the Iowa State Fair. The West Des Moines United Methodist Church began its food stand in 1949 and is now the last remaining vendor in the Fair’s historic “Church Row.”

For the church, it’s been a long-time ministry and beloved tradition. But it threatened to fizzle out, circa 2017, with the church preparing to surrender the stand back to the Fair. That’s when Ken Ferguson and Larry Sample, who’ve both been involved since the 1970s, stepped in.

“We volunteered to keep it going for a couple years,” Ferguson said, adding with a laugh: “We’ve retired a couple of times since then, but that didn’t work.” 

Known for serving three square meals a day, the stand inspires fairgoers to reminisce on simpler times. Located on Rock Island Avenue by the animal barns, the church opens two days before the fair begins to serve early arrivals: 4H participants, judges and sponsors. The curtains roll up at 6:15 a.m. daily to provide the earliest — and possibly heartiest — breakfast around.

“For three or four years in a row,” Sample said, “we ordered a ton of sausage gravy.”

Mind you, that’s a literal ton of gravy: 2,000 pounds. The biscuit count is somewhere around 12,000, Ferguson added.

Seven decades of service have brought several improvements. The church’s original hut sporting a sawdust floor and a loaned tarp for a roof became a permanent building in 1975. A commercial steam kettle replaced the four-burner range where church members cooked with consumer-sized pots and pans.

But through it all, their appeal has remained the same. Customers enjoy lingering over a friendly conversation and a cup of coffee: the best at the Fair, the church claims. And although coffee may now be served in Styrofoam cups instead of china — they just couldn’t keep up with the dishes — that doesn’t stop loyal customers from coming back year after year.

“It’s fun not only to work it, but to just talk to the people who say, ‘Oh, I’ve been coming here for the last 40 years; this is the only place I eat at the Fair,’ ” Ferguson said.

“It’s just a good feeling to be able to continue what prior members of the congregation have done,” Sample said.

Their job isn’t easy. Sample and Ferguson start planning all the moving parts beginning in early April; some years, they start in January. In July, they begin stockpiling supplies from Sam’s Club. Come opening week, they’ll be putting in 8-10 hours per day.

A major part of the process involves coordinating the staggering number of volunteer positions that must be filled: 279, to be exact. The church pays a kitchen manager and evening cleaner to provide continuity, but otherwise, the operation is fully staffed by volunteers.

It really does take a village — or in this case, a church. Kids as young as 12 years old work the stand with their parents, and church members of all ages chip in where they can.

“We have volunteer ladies in our church — one is 101 years old,” Ferguson said. “She said, ‘I don’t think I can work [the stand] anymore, but I’ll do the laundry.’ ”

Some volunteers arrive in early August to open the stand for the season. Others manage promotion and advertising. Someone else calls volunteers to remind them of their scheduled shift. An accounting group keeps track of proceeds. A special committee attends to customer prayer requests that are brought back to the church every evening.

“One retired couple from church decided a couple years ago that pies would be their project,” Ferguson said. “They pick up pies at 5 a.m., take them to the Fair stand, cut them, put them in containers, and keep track of inventory so they can know what to order for tomorrow.”

It runs like a well-oiled machine, and business has continued booming in recent years. But with the church’s aging congregation, finding enough volunteers has become a growing struggle. It’s the same struggle that eventually terminated other church stands at the Fair, the last in 2002.

The West Des Moines United Methodist Church has learned to adapt. A few years ago, they decided to reach beyond their small church congregation.

“We adopted what I named ‘Share the Mission,’ ” Sample explained. The church reaches out to other non-profit organizations for assistance and, in return, writes a check to support the nonprofit’s cause.

Personally, Ferguson and Sample know they can’t go on forever. Although they’ve been training Ferguson’s two sons-in-law to take over, they’re still heavily involved in the relentless labor. Both turn 78 this year.

“We really don’t want to see it go away,” Ferguson said. “Once we’re done, once we say we can’t do it, then it comes down and that property goes to somebody else.”

“We can probably help and do what we’re doing for a couple more years,” Sample said. “Maybe 80 is a magic year.” ♦