Mary Ann Fox visited 76 county fairs as the Iowa State Fair queen. She looks back on her year.
Mary Ann Fox went from Mitchell County queen to Iowa State Fair queen in a matter of 10 days in 2022.
At the time, she just graduated from Osage Community High School and was about to become a freshman at Iowa State University, studying agricultural engineering for animal production systems while minoring in animal science.
Fox was also elected as the North Central state vice president for Future Farmers of America.
Fox grew up just outside of New Haven in northern Iowa just 10 minutes from the Minnesota border. Her dad, Karl, grows corn and raises cattle, so farming is a way of life for Fox.
Fox’s quick summer of 2022 included seven days at the State Fair doing everything from measuring beards for a contest to handing out blue ribbons in animal competitions. Then as the fair ended, she packed up her life to start college mere days later.
As State Fair queen, she attended the state conference last December to help other county fairs improve their events, and appeared at the Corndog Kickoff, the biggest fundraiser for the Blue Ribbon Foundation for the Iowa State Fair. She even wove her way across the state, attending 76 county fairs this spring and summer to get to know the next contestants for her crown.
Here, Fox looks back on the past year, some of the fun things she did as Iowa State Fair queen, and what happens next.
Des Moines Register: I know for me right now it is absolutely insane and I can't imagine what it's like for you.
Mary Ann Fox: Ohhh, yeah. It's crazy. It's crazy bittersweet. I just can't believe it's already here. It's flown by. The days kind of went long when I was visiting the county fairs, but, man, did those months fly by.
DMR: Do you go to every county fair?
MAF: I am going to 76. Seventy-six is definitely enough for me. The biggest, the smallest, the in between.
DMR: You've gotten to know all of these different county queens along the way.
Mary Ann: So that's honestly probably one of my favorite parts was getting to know these 2023 county fair queens and just to see the new batch of them and to see maybe if I would see the one who's gonna end up taking my spot.
DMR: Take me back to last year. You were named the Mitchell County Fair queen, and then you came to Des Moines to compete against 101 other women for the Iowa State Fair queen tiara.
MAF: My county fair actually ended on Sunday so it’s right there before the State Fair. So I really didn't prepare for anything. I bought quite a few outfits to get me through the week, otherwise I kind of just got thrown into it. I was crowned my county fair queen the Wednesday before. It would have been exactly one week before the parade.
DMR: At least you didn’t have to wait.
MAF: I feel bad for some of these girls who have been crowned since the middle of June. I kind of feel bad they had to wait two months.
DMR: What made you decide to compete?
MAF: At my county fair, my dad has actually been on the board since before I was born. I grew up at my county fair showing livestock, doing 4-H projects and just helping clean up the grounds and helping anyway I could around the fairgrounds. It just kind of became a no brainer for me to run because of all my involvement at the county fair.
No way did I go into it trying very hard for me to be the State Fair queen or expect to win the State Fair queen. It was just, "OK I'm the county fair queen. I guess that's the next step for me to do."
DMR: Your issue for the year was agriculture teacher retention and rural Iowa. What have you been able to do in the past year to talk about that topic or meet with people about it.
MAF: This last year I was also serving as a state officer for the FFA and so I was doing that most of the time. I was actually pretty busy with the state office that I didn't get to do much of that work as the State Fair queen, but more of a state officer just because we had a lot of stuff to do for FFA.
DMR: What did you do at the fair last year that was memorable?
MAF: I would say the whole thing is being able to see the fair from a different perspective. My family and I only came down in the State Fair for one day every year. So here, I was able to be here for a whole seven days and see the fair and interact at the fair.
I think one of the most lovable things was the cornhole tournament that broke the world record. Being able to hold that plaque for the Guinness World Record and saying that the Iowa State Fair hosted the world's largest tournament, that's pretty cool.
DMR: Did you do anything in the agricultural barns?
MAF: I went to some of the shows and handed out a few ribbons but then I was also making appearances at other little events, too. We went up to Pioneer Hall and I had to measure for the beard contest. I was out there measuring. That was day two for me so that really got me introduced to the State Fair queen.
DMR: Do you have any favorite things to eat at the State Fair?
MAF: Oh yes. My absolute favorite food that I will forever stand by is a Pickle Dawg. It’s a deep-fried pickle wrap. That's my go to.
Otherwise you can never go wrong with a Hot Beef Sundae from the Cattleman’s Quarters. Those are my top two.
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Susan Stapleton is the entertainment editor and dining reporter at The Des Moines Register. You can reach out to her on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, or drop her a line at sstapleton@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: New Haven's Mary Ann Fox talks about her year as Iowa State Fair Queen
