April 25, 2024

Grand Marshals

Original Lynn Grove Hustlers, longtime volunteers lead county fair parade

By Mike Mendenhal

Jasper County Fair Parade Gran Marshals Chadwick Ver Ploeg, front left, Dick Ver Ploeg, back left, Ernest Eysink, front right, and Ralph Van Wyk board their horse-drawn carriage Monday night in Colfax before the 2016 Jasper County Fair Parade. The men were members of the Sully-area Lynn Grove Hustlers 4-H Club when it first was first founded in 1941. (Mike Mendenhall)

COLFAX — Monday’s Jasper County Fair Parade — led by four of the original members of the Lynn Grove Hustlers 4-H Club — was quite different from the processional the 2016 grand marshals marched in as kids in the 1940s.

“We used to have to take the calves down the road in the parade,” said 85-year-old Ernest Eysink, one of the grand marshals. “That was always quite a chore.”

From his velvet-covered carriage seat across from Eysink fellow grand marshal Dick Ver Ploeg, 84, agreed things look a lot different than when they all showed hogs with Lynn Grove Hustlers.

“And it has changed immensely from when we were at county fair,” he said. “For the good, too.”

Eysink and Ver Ploeg, along with 85-year-old Ralph J. Van Wyk and Dick’s 88-year-old brother Chadwick Ver Ploeg were honored at Monday’s Jasper County Fair Parade as original members of the Lynn Grove Hustlers in 1941 and for their decades of service planting and watering new trees and breaking out the paint brushes at the Jasper County Fairgrounds.

Seventy-five years after the Lynn Grove Hustlers formed, the 4-H club is still active and strong, serving kids from Sully, Lynnville and Killduff

As they sat in their horse-drawn carriage in the parade staging area Monday on West Broadway Street in Colfax, Chadwick said he’s witnessed the Jasper County Fair grow exponentially in the past 50 to 75 years and credits the success to quality fair boards past and present.

During the 4-H shows, Ralph remembers using the local sale barn as a show ring for livestock. “That’s how much it’s changed,” he said. Ernest said camping at the fair also used to be a bit different, sleeping in pickup truck beds with a cover as opposed to a camper or RV.

They may have seen a lot, but Monday was about the present for the grand marshals, and all four men appeared humbled and grateful to be awarded the honor of leading the parade for a county fair which means so much to them.

“It’s quite an honor that’s for sure,” Chadwick said.

His brother Dick added, “I think it’s special to me because our club has been fully organized all those years and it’s still in existence. It’s very active 4-H club.”

“I think it’s a very good honor,” Ralph said. “I don’t expect anything special, but it’s kind of good for us.”

Contact Mike Mendenhall at mmendenhall@newtondailynews.com