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Oct 05, 2023

Mediapolis Town and Country Days a joy for all

It was a family affair. Hundreds of children and their smiling parents lined the streets of Mediapolis on Saturday for the annual Mediapolis Town and Country Days parade. It was nothing like a Macy’s

It was a family affair.

Hundreds of children and their smiling parents lined the streets of Mediapolis on Saturday for the annual Mediapolis Town and Country Days parade.

It was nothing like a Macy’s spectravaganza in New York.

Kids scrambled about on both sides of every street on the parade route, diving for the candy that was being heaved overboard from the tractors and flatbed trailers as they trundled through the less-than-broiling August morning.

The festivities kicked off on Friday, but on Saturday there was an extra note of jubilance in the air: Southeast Iowa was no longer under the heat dome.

Friday’s entertainment included the ever-popular Patrick Noon, the Prince and Princess contestant introductions and the Bill Riley Talent Show featuring local talent of all flavors.

Fair-style food included Brenda’s Chuckwagon, Iowa Summer Snow Shaved Ice, Kramer’s Kettle Corn, Mr. Frostee Ice Cream & Treats, Smokey Blue Bar-B-Q and Sweet P’s Confection, all local favorites.

Someone asked Mepo native Ryan Garland, who lives in Middletown: How many tractors were in the parade?

“I’m guessing 45,” Garland said.

His daughter Marley Garland guessed 22. She’s a sophomore in Danville, so it makes sense that she’s better at math and thus was closer to the total of “close to twenty tractors” according to parade maven Keely Keitzer.

This was Keitzer’s first year as parade chair.

“We had over 70 entries this year consisting of floats, tractors, antique cars, lots of businesses, high school sports, high school bands and all the miscellaneous entries,” Keitzer said.

She said the tractor estimate did not include combines because, “There were no combines.”

Father-in-law Dan Keitzer said there was a small issue with the horses when the parade hit downtown Mepo.

“The first horses were coming around the corner and the fellow who was doing the PA announcing? A couple of them horses were getting really jumpy, so I ran back down and told him to cut it off before the horses got there, because the little kids were having a tough time,” Keitzer said. “We were up here at 5:45 setting up along Main Street. It’s been a long day already. But its a labor of love. You try to give back to your community, and that’s what makes a rural community valuable to live in; it’s what everybody does to help make it work.”

His son Keaton agreed: “I’m glad it’s almost over. It’s been busy week.”

Uber-mom Katie Wagenbach kept watch over five youngsters as they frolicked in the candy shower coming off the parade vehicles.

“I’m the mom to some and the aunt to a few,” Wagenbach said. Scout, Saylor, Seattle and Carolyn Wagenbach joined Tatum Roth as they gaped down the street at the next candy bonanza chugging their way.

Katie agreed that the Mepo event was preferable to a New York City parade.

“It’s a whole lot more convenient,” she said. “We like our small-town parade.”

There were no scary clown sightings in Cartwright Park on Saturday, but Janet Russell, aka Buckwheat the Clown, wasn’t in full-dress clown uniform-and-makeup, so the little kids eagerly flocked to her picnic table for balloon animals.

Russell said it was too hot to clown around.

“The heat kinda makes it kinda hard to dress up and really be into character,” she said. “The heat’s been terrible. But we’re in the shade today and we got our hat on, and we got our Buckwheat the Clown shirts.”

Russell collects money for charity by making balloon animals for the kids; she usually gives her booty to Alzheimer’s causes.

Do people come up and give her money just because she’s Buckwheat?

“Yes, because they want a ballon,” she said, adding that dogs are a popular balloon animal.

“I have a lot of requests for a lot of different things,” Russell said. “Some of the kids want a jet pack — just to put me to the test — and some of ‘em want you to make guns, and swords. Couple of ‘em want you to make monkeys or poodles.”

Interesting that there were no trashcans along the parade route, but there was an endloader with a kid and a shovel following the horses.

Angela and Mila Hollingsworth rode high upon Cody, a rescue mustang from Wyoming, in Saturday’s pack of parade animals.

Mila is 7; her mom is a semi-retired trick rodeo rider who now lives in southeast Iowa.

“When I came to Missouri to trick ride with a friend, I met Abby and Meishja Petersen,” Hollingsworth said. “We formed a troupe together called The Wild Riders, and we trick-rode off and on for many summers, out West and at Frontier Town in Maryland.”

Hollingsworth and the Petersen girls, known today as Meishja Scharpman and Abigail Constanza, are still friends and ride together often.

“I’m semi-retired, but I just performed at the Des Moines County Fair at the end of July,” Hollingsworth said. “I used one of the girls’ horses who has one eye.”

Mila, meantime, looks to be following in mom’s stirrups.

Reva Davis of Sperry served in the U.S. Army from 1972 to 1975 and was presented with a quilt from Quilts of Valor at Cartwright Park just before the hot wings eating contest began.

Quilts of Valor are given to veterans who served in the American armed forces.

Davis, a Spec 5 sergeant when she left the service, was stationed in Germany, where she became a drug and alcohol counselor.

“Prior to that I worked as a psychiatric counselor at Walson Army Hospital at Fort Dix, New Jersey,” she said. “I was the only female on an all-male ward.”

The six contestants in the Adult Hot Wing-Eating Contest — seriously: teens were not allowed — included chompers from Pella, Louisiana and Southern California. All the contestants had to agree not to hold the town of Mediapolis accountable for any gastric distress, indigestion, pepper-induced psychotic epidodes and so on.

The wing peppers included Carolina Reapers and Jamaican Hot Chocolates and other flesh-eating varieties. The actual chicken wings were from Mepo Foods and sponsored by Town and Country Days. Contestants were given milk to drink during the chowdown.

The prize for first, second and third place was a spicy elderberry sauce in a plastic loving cup.

First to bolt from the stage was Evan from Mepo — last name withheld — who had to quit after just three wings.

“Ahh-yuh!” he gasped, fanning his mouth. “Argh!”

Last year’s winner, Sharon Shaw, lives in Mepo but she’s from Louisiana and lived on Lake Charles for a time.

“I only won last year because I swallowed the chicken in my mouth before the other guy did,” Shaw said prior to Saturday’s contest. She said she didn’t upchuck, but, “I did sit under a ceiling fan with a bottle of Tums for about ten hours.”

She said she’d heard there were some wing-ringers this year.

“That fellow in the black shirt is from Southern California, so I’ve got my work cut out for me,” Shaw said.

But Shaw came in second to retired Des Moines County sheriff and fireman Steven Parker, who finished his dozen wings so far ahead of the others that some folks in the audience thought he had bailed out.

“I just stayed focused,” Parker said.

Parker is also the national voice of McGruff the Crime Dog.

“Town and Country Days is a great event for Mediapolis and the surrounding area,” he said. “I want to thank everyone for coming and participating, and have a wonderful afternoon.”

Everyone did. Especially the kids who went home with more candy than Halloween.

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