Jerry Apps explores the history of county and state fairs in Wisconsin, from their earliest incarnations as livestock exhibitions to today’s multitude of exhibits and demonstrations, grandstand entertainment, games and rides, and competitions of all sorts. Drawing on his extensive research, interviews, and personal experience as a 4-H leader, county extension agent, fair judge, and lifelong fairgoer, Apps takes readers back through 178 years of Wisconsin fair history, covering everything from horsepulling and calf-showing contests to exhibit judging to the roar of gasoline engines powering the midway rides. He evokes the sights and sounds of fairs through the ages while digging in to the political and social forces that shaped the fair into an icon of our rural heritage. Illustrated with vintage and modern photos and featuring the voices of exhibitors, judges, volunteers, and visitors, Meet Me on the Midway vividly captures the thrills and cherished memories of these beloved annual gatherings.
Jerry Apps was born and raised on a central Wisconsin farm. He is a former county extension agent and professor emeritus for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. As a 4-H member, Jerry exhibited cattle and other projects at county fairs for ten years; he also served as a county fair judge for ten years. Today he works as a rural historian and full-time writer. Jerry has received the Major Achievement Award from the Council for Wisconsin Writers and the Distinguished Service Award from the UW–Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, and he was elected a Fellow in the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters in 2012.
Jerry is the author of more than forty fiction, nonfiction, and children’s books with topics ranging from barns, one-room schools, cranberries, cucumbers, cheese factories, and the humor of mid-America to farming with horses and the Ringling Brothers circus. He has created six documentaries with PBS Wisconsin and won a regional Emmy Award for A Farm Winter. He and his wife, Ruth, have three grown children, seven grandchildren, and one great-grandson. Visit him at https://jerryapps.com/