Kelvin Quarles: Power to the people at KMOJ
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As listeners of KMOJ (89.9 FM), we know Shed G. and Freddie Bell … we know Lisa Moy, Walter “Q Bear” Banks, Jr. and Big Sam; but who most don’t know is Kelvin Quarles.
Debra Fisher Goldstein sees – and helps us see – the State Fair through a vivid lens
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The last fireworks explode. The grandstand concert empties. It’s time for the corn roasters’ nightly dance. The young food workers cover the hot coals with metal sheets, climb onboard, and jump and dance as the embers cool beneath them.
‘Born and raised on the fair’: Brooke Blakey keeps us informed about public safety
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Brooke Blakey loves the Minnesota State Fair. It’s a good thing, because she’s there 12 to 16 hours a day during the 12-day run of the Great Minnesota Get-Together.
The biggest transit show in Minnesota: The State Fair
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If you want to see the biggest transit show in Minnesota, or anywhere between Chicago and the West Coast for that matter, hop a bus to the new State Fair bus terminal between now and Labor Day. Almost half of fairgoers arrive by bus, and those are now concentrated on the northwest side of the fair grounds. In addition to the new entry gate that replaced Heritage Square (see above), the terminal itself is just temporary fencing and lines painted on the asphalt of the big parking lot that serves the U of M’s St. Paul Campus most of the year. Built on the cheap, the loading and layover areas will need improvement because the buses are crushing the thin asphalt. Even so, it’s a big improvement on the facilities it replaced. Continue Reading
State Fair diaries: Day 1
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The Fair began this year, as it usually does, with friends and breakfast at Salem. Rain and the promise of humid heat kept the crowds away. We spent the morning volunteering at Renewing the Countryside and the afternoon wandering the Fairgrounds searching for old favorites and new possibilities. Continue Reading
MUSIC PHOTOS | Toby Keith kicks off 2014 Minnesota State Fair
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It takes a big boot to kick-off opening night in the Grandstand at the Great Minnesota Get Together and Toby Keith was just the man to fill it August 21st. There is something about the fair that creates and energy and excitement that’s different from any other venue and when you get a beautiful night like we had on Thursday, you just can’t beat it. The Grandstand was packed to the edges with all kinds of music fans fortunate to be in attendance for Keith’s two-hour hit packed “Shut Up & Hold On” tour performance.Showing his Patriotism with Old Glory streaming from a microphone stand and cowboy boots decorated with the stars and stripes, Colt Ford started the evening out in style with a spirited performance. Day one is in the books, but the fun has only just started so don’t miss out on this year’s great line-up and we’ll see you at the Fair.
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A peek at the Cold Climate Wine Competition
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It is a few days before the gates open at the 2014 Minnesota State Fair and I find myself peeking into a conference room at the University of Minnesota. Wine glasses and flutes clink together as official-looking-types wheel carts of red and white samples to the judging tables that flank the room. Grape growers, wine makers, chefs, instructors, and wine-loving volunteers are gathered to help judge the 6th Annual Cold Climate Wine Competition. I can smell wine on their collective breaths and worry that the light fragrance I tucked under my blouse early in the morning will contaminate the judges’ refined palates as they swirl and sip. Continue Reading
Your House at the Minnesota State Fair
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Fairgoers are invited to meet and greet legislators and weigh in on hot political topics during their visit to the House of Representatives booth at the Minnesota State Fair, Thursday, Aug. 21 through Monday, Sept. 1.
Spotlight on access – physical and virtual – at the 2014 Great Minnesota Get-Together!
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The healthy being craves an occasional wildness, a jolt form normality, a sharpening of the edge of appetite, his own little festival of Saturnalia, a brief excursion from his way of life. – Robert MacIver, sociologist
It’s State Fair time — when new taste treats compete with cheese curds for olfactory prominence, military issue 4-H dorms house weary teens demo-ing the latest in control of frac-sand or groundwater pollution, research-in-progress shares space with Goldie Gopher at the aU of M show-and-tell. Still, as J.V. Bailey (for whom the building that now houses the Minnesota State Fair Foundation is named) observed the “the State Fair approaches in scope and effort an institution of learning.” Continue Reading