(Radio Iowa) – The 2025 Iowa State Fair doesn’t end until Sunday night, giving a few more politicians a chance to engage in what’s turned out to be common exercise for vote-seekers. Dana Wanken of Clarion was manning the state fair grills for the Iowa Pork Producers back in 2007 — the day presidential candidate Mitt Romney dropped a chop.

“Guess what happened? He flipped one high and it bounced on (the ground) and I was standing right behind him and his wife and he goes: ‘Oh, five second rule!’ And he picked it up and threw it back on the grill,” Wanken said. “I stuck my arm between him and his wife and grabbed that hot devil off of there and I said: ‘You can’t do that!'” Wanken has a piece of advice for the politicians volunteering to do a stint of flipping at the grill.

“Wear a glove ’cause it’s hot,” Wanken said, with a laugh. As temperatures soar during the State Fair’s August run, Governor Kim Reynolds says politicians still seem to wind up at the hottest spot on the fairgrounds.  “They all want to do it because it’s iconic. You know, you can’t come here and not go, plus we’re the number one pork producer in the country,” Reynolds said, “so it really is an opportunity for us to get some time around the grill and make our case that we need markets.”

As an example, U-S Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins joined Reynolds at the grill a few days ago and visited with the real grill masters. Pork Producers from around the state come to grill pork loins and flip the chops and pork burgers that are sold to fair-goers. State Auditor Rob Sand grabbed a spatula and joined a group of grillers earlier this week.  “I’m here every year, on Wednesday, with the Lee County guys,” Sand said. “I did that the first time, got to know them and it’s fun to come back and see them again.”

There is only one Wednesday during the State Fair’s annual 11-day run — but there was more than one politician at the Pork Producers’ grill this past Wednesday. Two state senators stopped by to flip and visit about half an hour before Sand arrived.