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Woman attends IA State Fair every year since birth

State fairs are known for being family events attended by generations of people over the years. Brownfield talked with a woman who has never missed the Iowa State Fair. Cumalene Carroll lives in Missouri but she was born and raised on a row crop farm in south central Iowa, between Sheraton and Knoxville.

She tells Brownfield, “I have to go ahead and say, I AM 86, and I’ve never missed one. And, I was born on the 7th of August and I went on the 23rd of August on that year. We have done all of our babies ever since like that. You just take the babies and you go and you camp.”

Cumalene and her family camp at the Iowa State Fairgrounds every year and she tells me that’s her favorite part. What are her best memories as a kid?

“I didn’t really want to see the cows, I was scared of ‘em. (laugh) I think probably I remember more the foods, oh, just the smell of the fair. They had a little train that went all through the fairground that we rode.” 

Aside from the camping experience that she loves, Cumalene says she enjoys seeing all of the flowers at the Ag Building every year. 

Cumalene has been going to the Iowa State Fair every year of her life and tells Brownfield she has no intention of skipping a year, “There was never a question that I wasn’t going to go to the FAIR.”

Cumalene has her two camping spots reserved at the Iowa State Fair for next year and intends to keep those in her family for the next generations to enjoy.

AUDIO: Cumalene Carroll (11:00 mp3)