By Elaine Rassel
This has been a week like no other week! Mid afternoon of Monday (August 9) two men from FCA were on Railroad Street and moving beans from one of the elevators. They suddenly were trapped. Help came from Cherokee, Meriden, Remsen, and our own Fire Department. A couple of hours later, they were on the helicopter from Sioux City to be checked out. There were quite a few onlookers but none of them interfered with those helping in the rescue.
At 5 p.m. that same day, the Marcus City Council had their regular meeting. It was a very short meeting. The Police Department didn’t have a report as he was at the rescue scene.
Except for television coverage on Tuesday of the rescue, Tuesday was a normal day a day to get ready for the next five days.
I started Wednesday by going to Kathy Sand’s funeral. While there, Tom Dorr came and spoke to me. A while back, he had sent a letter to me. That is the first that I knew he was back in Iowa_he had been in Washington, D.C. for a time. He didn’t get much time to eat as he had quite a few people that came to visit with him and Ann.
Wednesday was the big day at the Fair grounds.! At 7 p.m. in the Hall of Progress at the Fair grounds, the King and Queen for the Sesquicentennial were going to be known. I was able to get a picture of all the 10 candidates. Bonnie Means was the only woman dressed in bonnet and long dress. I was told that there were 5,000 ballots cast for voting for the King and Queen but I was not told how the 5,000 was broken down_as for “how many” were for each candidate. (Maybe this number wasn’t any more than a rumor.) Renea Ogren was MC for the event. What better person than her to keep things moving! The Charades with Mike Hoover, Chuck Nielsen, and Andy Juhl took the audience back in time with their music. Renea, with her Charades tee shirt on, went and found more than one man from the audience to dance with her to the Charades’ music!
Thursday I went with Steve to Le Mars for him to get a camera memory card that worked in his camera. He had gone there on Wednesday, bought a card, and that night discovered his camera wouldn’t accept this card. I told him to put the original card in and delete some of the pictures not necessary and thus making room for Wednesday’s pictures. When he went back on Thursday, (close to 12 p.m.) he was told that the card he had purchased had 32 gb’s on it and evidently his camera wouldn’t take that many.
Before he got another card, we went and developed pictures we were going to enter in the Fair. I went to the car and it seemed like forever before he came. He was able to take the first card back. We stopped for a hamburger and headed back to Marcus. I had to be at O’Haira’s at 3 p.m. and arrived 10 minutes earlier. That was cutting it close! An hour later I was at home and getting pictures ready for the Fair. These had to be in before 8 p.m. and I had to be at the Little Miss Marcus contest at 5:30 that started at 6 o’clock.
Steve picked me up close to 5:30 and then we had to find a parking place. We decided to enter our things after the Little Miss Marcus was over. We had just enough time to carry our entries to the fourth building to enter. I wish next year there could be a couple parking spots (on the road just behind the fourth building) reserved for those who enter their things rather than all the walking. We were able to only have to make one walking trip even though Steve had quite a few things to enter. I took his pictures and mine and got them in before 8 o’clock while he went to the canning department, flowers, and grain to do those entries. (I didn’t know I could accomplish all I did on Thursday with the little bit of time I had! I hope this doesn’t happen again!)
I made it on time for the Little Miss Marcus program. This year there were 10 girls in the competition. Babies on Parade usually are in the middle of the Little Miss Marcus contest, but this year, they were first. A great switch as there were some babies that were getting restless.
I noticed that some of the Little Miss Marcus contestants didn’t have to go to the camper to change into another outfit as they wore the same outfit at the beginning of their interview. This did save some time. Kristie Ames and daughter, Kylee were the MC’s for the Little Miss Marcus and Babies on Parade. (I thank them for giving me the information on the Babies on Parade!)
Once again Steve found out that the second card he bought, didn’t work! On Friday he went back and was told that maybe his camera was the age that there would be no card available. Somehow he did get a card that did work. I guess he might have to make CD’s and then delete to make room for new pictures in order to keep a card.
Friday was the day for the Kiddie Parade. Bensen and Gracelyn were the first ones to walk before the audience on Friday night. They were dressed in Centennial outfits. Even Gracelyn’s doll had a matching dress to Gracelyn’s. There were many entries that had wagons, etc. in addition to the kids in them. Each kid that entered, received tickets for rides and a $1. Even if they didn’t get first or second, they were ALL WINNERS!
We stayed to hear Bailey Dorr girl sing. I was told she is a relative of Chuck Dorr. She has a beautiful voice! Then it was time for the hypnotist. He (Kellen Marson) waited a few minutes as most of the audience was NOT young people! (They were probably at the Sand Volleyball court.) Finally he was able to get 11 of them upstage. Before he was done, only 6 survived! The only boy on stage was told to go in the audience and take flip flops/sandals off of people. As he came down where we were sitting, suddenly Steve had his taken off by the guy and thrown to the side! It took Steve by surprise. As soon as the guy left our area, Steve went and retrieved his sandals as we didn’t know if the guy would be coming back and throwing them to Tin Buck Two!
The fireworks were let off on the road north of Marcus. There were 10 minutes or so of fireworks. We could hear music from the street dance down by my house. I don’t know when this was over. (Someone said it was about 1:30 a.m.)
Saturday arrived and not much time left to find a place to watch the 1 p.m. parade that had changed its route this year. The parade was over at 2 p.m. I went to the office next to the Fair office to purchase a shot glass with 150 on it to add to the collection I have. It was closed until 3 p.m. I went back home and back out there again an hour later and then back home until 5:30. Steve and I had the chicken special for $6 from the Pizza Ranch and went to the Hall of Progress to eat it. We were the only ones in this dark building. More than one person passed by and probably wondered what we were doing!
Then it was time to go to the Horse Arena to see the Westernaires from Colorado perform. The sun didn’t go down behind the trees until 7:20 p.m. Those riding “Roman” (two horses and one rider) performed right during this time. The sun was so bright that I couldn’t even take a picture of them. They had other acts other than with horses. There were those with whips performing and also those with ropes. The rope people were doing a “hula hoop” performance. We got to speak to the performers after the hour plus performance when they lined up along the fence. They are a good bunch of young people and very happy to come back to our Fair.
Sunday I went to the cooking school at noon. Then it was time to go to the 4:30 p.m. burial of the time capsule. At 5 p.m., the Wood Carving Silent Auction took place. There was free ice cream at 6:30, after we went to pick up our exhibits. Then it was home to get as much information on this week ready for the newspaper.
Monday there is a school board meeting and after that I should have some time to relax!
Keep in your thoughts and prayers those who have lost loved ones to death, have health issues, are trying to pay their back rent, are struggling with finances, and to those who are still distant from family or friends. Make amends before it is too late.
I will close with this quote from H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (1940-), American author, “Never deprive someone of hope; it might be all they have.”