The Heart of it All: A Report from the Ohio State Fair

The Ohio State Fair has long been a political affair, not just for politicians, but for activists. The result is an awkward mix of absurdity, politics, agriculture, tragedy, and folly.

The 1977 Ohio State Fair would have been lost in the bottomless vault of uneventful happenings were it not for an unsuspecting banana cream pie. It’s not the existence of the pie on its own that should interest the reader, in fact, I’m sure many pies of various sorts were distributed and consumed at the fair that year (Schmidt’s, for example, has sold over a million giant cream puffs in its lengthy tenure at the fair), but instead, it is the carrier of the pie, and more importantly, its trajectory, that made history. 

On the opening day, a young OSU activist by the name of Steve Conliff snuck through a crowd of reporters to get close to Ohio’s third-term Governor Jim Rhodes, a passionate annual attendee of the fair. Conliff, wishing to bring attention to Rhodes’ role in the Kent State massacre and the plans to build a gymnasium over the site, sent his banana cream pie gracefully into the shoulder of Governor Rhodes, sparking a panic. Conliff was swiftly tackled to the ground and arrested by Highway Patrol. It was a major event. The unprecedented incident would’ve been far more ingrained in our nation’s psyche had it not been for another story that broke that same day: Elvis Presley’s death. The pieing of Rhodes is a fantastic microcosm of what the Ohio State fair embodies; some awkward mix of absurdity, politics, agriculture, tragedy, and folly.

Fair Demographics

There’s an old Midwestern joke about a farmer selling his horse. The buyer asks if he can see the horse run and so the farmer slaps the horse who runs full speed into the side of the barn. The buyer says, “Why, that horse is blind,” and the farmer responds, “Oh no, he just doesn’t give a damn.” I was reminded of this joke after a woman with a Southern accent scorned my friend at the horse show, “you’re standing in the stairs,” she said. My friend responded confidently, “I am standing on the stairs.” She wasn’t blind, she just didn’t give a damn. 

The Ohio State Fair is a diverse environment overall, with a demographic that skews due to various factors—the day of the week, the time of day, and the amount of livestock competitions scheduled. On any given morning, attendees are overwhelmingly white, of suburban or rural geographical backgrounds. Events scheduled for this time consist of the following: non-denominational church services, baton competitions, wrestling tournaments, and various livestock competitions. It is the time for pale white-collar families to take the day to walk the relatively empty grounds, to park their stroller at the base of the Taft Coliseum’s seating and watch Tracie and Carlie’s equestrian tricks. 

Agricultural workers are there too, not to watch the show, but to perform. They’re on the clock. The boyfriend of one of the horseback performers drags a long sparkling rope to guide the horses, it’s his job and his duty. Pigs, cows, and horses are pampered for show, but so too are the people. The show cattle competition is also a pageantry for the children dressed in their finest shirts, bluest jeans, and cleanest cowboy hats. A young man with a shaved head locked eyes with me as his Mother made final preparations on his outfit, his eyes filled with a fear like that of the caged livestock. 

I am of a demographic who comes out in the afternoon, sleeping in and much preferring to avoid the fair and the traffic associated with it. I have no cowboy boots or squadron of strollers, no lake tan and no southern accent. I'm a young resident of the Columbus Metropolitan region, a geographical neighbor to the FairGrounds. This demographic emerges just as the sun passes its highest point, a signal to a young and diverse population that it is time to stand in line for deep-fried Oreos, shaky rides, and the cheapest item of food offered by vendors: egg on a stick. 

Corruption and Yung Gravy

Politics are over-represented in coverage of fairs – most attendees see very little of it outside of a Trump shirt here or there. This year of 2023, in the spirit of politics and agriculture, state legislators competed in the Ohio Department of Agriculture’s “Pork Off,” attempting to guide borrowed hogs just as their constituents do competitively. Ohio Senator JD Vance, who didn’t participate in the Pork Off, took the opportunity to lazily urge voters to vote “yes” on Issue 1, which would’ve made it effectively impossible for Ohioans to amend the state constitution (Ohio voters responded by voting overwhelmingly no). We should be thankful that political hog shows and idle statements from opportunistic Senators are the worst of it. Iowa’s state fair was a political Pork Off of profound magnitudes. It hosted former President Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and Republican presidential candidate and central Ohio resident, Vivek Ramaswamy, who, without invitation, rapped Eminem’s 2002 hit song, “Lose Yourself.” 

At Ohio’s state fair, there are many musicians who, with invitation, perform shows. It was the late Midwesterner, Kurt Vonnegut, who once wrote that “no matter how corrupt, greedy, and heartless our government, our corporations, our media, and our religious and charitable institutions may become, the music will still be wonderful.” Vonnegut’s quote should grace the walls of Ohio’s expo centers named after Ohio governors including Rhodes that have hosted artists ranging from Johnny Cash and Bob Hope to Bow Wow and Ke$ha. This year, attendees heard Third Eye Blind, Ludacris, and the SoundCloud rapper, Yung Gravy. The only proof you need for the existence of God, Vonnegut might say, is the music of Yung Gravy. 

Ohio Diminished

Once a farmer was charged with child abuse. His crime was willing the farm to his son. This old joke rings too relevant for Ohioans. With the odor of animals, fecal matter, and hay, the fair’s agricultural foundations are aging. The land of soybeans and corn has diminished. Rural regions, small towns, and cities other than Columbus dwindle as fertilizer prices skyrocket and youth flee the state. In one generation, we have gone from hut to skyscraper and back to hut again. Cities have risen from the soil and sunkenly returned. 

Pride is absent in the crowds of the state fair, reduced to fragmented sports fandom – a man wears an outfit entirely decorated in Cleveland Browns logos or the Cincinnati Reds. The words “Freedom” and “Liberty” are hollow here, reduced to theatrical political slogans. Excitement is temporary, spurred by the cheap rides. Few find energy in the corn and the land and the cities. Here, few say, as Twain once did of the Midwest, “Sugar in the gourd, honey in the horn, I never was so happy since the day I was born!”

Even with the attempts at historical references like the tractor machine exhibit, the historical markers, and the buildings named after Ohio Governors, attendees ignore the historicity and instead live in a fair suspended in the vacuum known as the present. The great Minnesota writer Meridel Le Sueur once wrote of the Midwest that “no fund of instinct and experience has been accumulated, and each generation seems to be more impoverished than the last.” An anxiety permeates through the population, some plague of uncertainty. There is a poetry to this, but it is a scary thing, not a sweet one. Everyone walks through the fairgrounds with grave suspicion and a degree of dismay.

The fair’s excitement has been scarred since its shutting down for the pandemic, one of the only times it's been canceled other than WWII. It’s telling that the one time in recent history that the fair did make national headlines was for a crash in 2017 when a corroding ride broke and killed one Ohioan. This is the fair’s legacy to a wider audience, one of tragedy. The liveliest event at the fair is no other than the wrestling tournament. Not because of the entertainment value, but the symbolic value. There is something about the state’s youth fighting tooth and limb that resonates with Ohioans. A young woman with a shirt that reads “Jesus Trained,” enters the ring only to be choked to the point of unrestrained gagging. The bleachers are always full and the mats always filled with upheaval.

But Ohio is also the state of poet Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Toni Morrison, James Thurber. The Midwest’s history is rich in culture and noble political struggles from Illinois’ Lincoln and Indiana’s Eugene Debs to Ohio’s progressive era and the founding of the American Federation of Labor and the United Mine Workers, both founded in Columbus. An early country newspaper once wrote, “This country should not only make its own hobnails but its own poetry.” It is the land of Carl Sandburg and Gwendolyn Brooks, the Middle West. I remain convinced that there is a future in which Ohians will be and feel reunited with our rich history, and our state fair will one day embody the corn and the land and the cities. 

The trial of Steve Conliff, the pie-throwing defendant, was not without madness. After a theatrical trial featuring promotional pie throwing events, Conliff was acquitted for the charge of assault and the courtroom erupted in joy. Apparently the judge forgot about the disorderly conduct charge, but Conliff, with the unwarranted arrogance of one who narrowly escaped political persecution, snapped, “Judge, hey, judge, don't you want your ounce of flesh?” The judge called the court back to order and swiftly sentenced him to 10 days for contempt. 

When I saw images of politicians attending this year’s state fair, claiming to be for the farmers while being funded by the corporations killing their businesses, I wondered if anyone was lurking behind them with an unsuspecting banana cream pie. I wondered who, if anyone, would be the carrier of the pie, and more importantly, what its trajectory would be.

Jim Rhodes portrait in the Rhodes Center building.