Amid the dizzy whirl of rides and the sticky-sweet scent of funnel cake, a different kind of challenge unfolds on the Iowa State Fair midway. Here, behind rows of basketball hoops and balloon-popping booths, couples, friends and families gather for a ritual as old as the Ferris wheel: the quiet, unspoken pressure to win a plushie.
Some chase the comically large bananas, some settle for a fidget spinner and others leave clutching nothing but their pride and a story.
On Friday, Aug. 8, with the sun glaring above the carnival, the competition was on.
‘He set the bar low already’
In the thick of it stood Kyle Runyon, giraffe plushie in hand, with Katie Swedeman by his side.
“Was there pressure for him to win?” Swedeman considered for a second, then shrugged. “I would say no, because he didn’t win any last year, so I wasn’t expecting anything.” She smirked. “He set the bar low already.”
Runyon took it in stride, though. “Oh, there’s always pressure. Yeah, you know, I’m a winner, so I usually get a win. Last year was an off year. It was an anomaly.”
This was their second Iowa State Fair together, but Swedeman has been coming since she was a kid: “I was never a big game player, so this is my first time actually playing games with him.”
The giraffe win felt good, but it wasn’t enough for Runyon: “It’s all right, I’ll be back though. I’m getting one of the big ones.”
‘Heartbreak is near and dear to me’
Not far away, we followed Brendan Eilander and Alana Zehring as they moved from game to game, hoping for a win.
“Disappointed. Yeah, too close. Just, just too far off,” Eilander admitted after a tough loss at the baseball toss.
He didn’t have to wait long for a small victory. After some stretching and giving it another go, Eilander finally walked away with a prize: a meager fidget spinner, lost in the shadows of the giant plushies he’d been aiming for.
“I’m competitive at heart, so I’ve always been either I win or it doesn’t really matter,” he said. “The little prizes never really gave me anything other than disappointment.”
For him, the annual trip to the fair is as much about the chase as the win.
Sometimes, that means walking away with less than you bargained for. Eilander laughed, “I will drop entirely too much money.” He pointed back at the ring toss. “We blew like $70 on that game right there.”
Zehring, meanwhile, knows the drill. “A plushie’s nice,” she said, watching another couple haul away a giant bear, “but you know, they get a little hole in them and the beads come out, and that’s usually when I’m like, let me tidy it up and donate it off.” Sometimes, the plushie doesn’t even make it home — Eilander said she’s been known to hand them to a kid before the night is over.
For Zehring, the stakes are clear. “You’re trying to prove it to yourself,” she told Eilander. He just grinned, fidget spinner in hand. “Yeah? It’s mostly for myself. Yeah, you’re here to support.”
With age comes persistence (and a bigger pile of plushies)
Jennifer and Kurt Martin were hunting for something different: toys for their dogs.
“Dude, they love stuffies,” Jennifer Martin said. She said she’s the game player of the pair, with her husband cheering her on. “It’s all about me.”
For Jennifer, persistence was the name of the game. “I’m very persistent. Yeah, I’m on a mission.”
With each balloon that popped, her pile grew, destined not for the small fish, but the giant cow.
“When you get a little bit older, you just kind of, you know, go with it. and when you win your plushie toys, they go to your dogs. I love and they love it,” she said. She glanced back at the booth, “Yes, we will keep playing. I love it absolutely.”
She walked away with a medium sized cow, vying to keep going for the giant one throughout the day.
New fair, new love
Garrett Rogers and Bailey Dean stood at the edge of the carnival, taking in the second day of the fair, caught between the noise of the rides and the clatter of games.
It was their first Iowa State Fair together — a fact that brought a mix of nerves and excitement. In Rogers’ hand, a chicken plushie from whack-a-mole, hard-won.
When asked if he felt any pressure to win, Rogers was honest: “Yeah, a little bit, actually, yeah.”
He passed the prize to Dean, who hugged it and smiled, “Yeah, yeah, I’m very happy.”
Neither was chasing any kind of record — just a bit of luck and a good story.
They lingered, undecided on what came next. “We’re trying to decide if we want a ride or a stuffed animal,” Dean said, glancing up at the Ferris wheel.
For them, the fair was as much about the experience as the prizes. “I’ve been going since I was a kid, and I just really like the food and just like seeing everything. I think I really like it. It’s really fun here,” Dean said.
Nick El Hajj is a reporter at the Register. He can be reached at nelhajj@gannett.com. Follow him on X at @nick_el_hajj.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: At the Iowa State Fair, relationships get tested one stuffed animal game at a time
Reporting by Nick El Hajj, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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