(Radio Iowa) – While the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum is closed for a 20-million dollar renovation, officials at the West Branch facility hope to keep the topic of Iowa’s only native president top of mind with a comprehensive exhibit at the Iowa State Fair. Greta Bierman, a spokeswoman for the Hoover Presidential Foundation, says one feature will give fairgoers the chance to work off those corndogs by playing a round of Hooverball.

“This was a game that was developed when Herbert Hoover was the president, and he played Hooverball every day except for Sunday with his cabinet members,” Bierman says. “It’s kind of a cross between volleyball and tennis, and since you’re throwing a medicine ball over a really high net, it keeps you in shape.” The display will include a photo booth where fairgoers can dress up as the 31st president and the first lady and stand behind a podium as if giving a campaign speech. Bierman says it will be packed with interactive exhibits.

“Our whole display booth is going to show the history of Herbert Hoover himself,” Bierman says, “but it also gives you images of what the museum looked like before the renovation and what it’s going to look like after.” While some only associate Hoover with the Great Depression, Bierman says there’s much more to learn about his career as an engineer, a world traveler, his deep Iowa roots, and how his legacy of integrity, service, and innovation still inspires generations.

“‘Ask me about the great humanitarian,’ is one of our mottos,” she says. “All of the humanitarian work that he had done from the Belgian food relief after the First World War, again after World War II, when the Mississippi flooded, how he headed up helping that food relief in the United States.” The fair opens Thursday and the exhibit will be located west of the D-N-R building and north of Grand Avenue on Monday and Tuesday. The library and museum is expected to reopen in the summer of 2026 with fresh exhibits and immersive storytelling.