Polka Party

My job with Iowa Public Television allows me an opportunity to travel across the state and cover all sorts of topics. Last week it was baseball and the wine industry. This week, its the polka.

I will try to post pictures of those adventures here on this site as I usually do as they happen on Twitter which also feeds my Facebook page. So, you may have seen some of these pics before, sorry about that. But its also a chance to keep track of what I've been up to if the bosses get curious.

Tuesday night Steve Carns and I were on another pre-fair story. This time we were hanging out with the Polka Club of Iowa during a performance in Clive, IA. They will be performing at the Iowa State Fair on August 20th in Pioneer Hall at 9a. Check them out if you get a chance. Currently there's about 600 people statewide who take part in a dancing polka group like this one.


The Tuesday event was a senior community center and gave a chance to do something different for the evening. The polka group was having fun with the crowd even getting them to do everyone's favorite, the chicken dance.

If you want to learn more about the Polka Club of Iowa, check out their website. Magically, you can find it here.

The Polka Club of Iowa was part of last year's Oktoberfest in downtown Des Moines through the Hessen Haus and Principal Park. There's a little bit more to the story for this year according to Tim Westemeyer. He's got a blog that has his story of why they won't be polka-ing at this year's Oktoberfest that's been renamed to Rocktoberfest.

He's looking to do a story if anyone's interested.



Back to the polka story. We'll follow up with the Polka Club of Iowa at the Fair on August 20th and will air during our Iowa State Fair coverage on IPTV beginning the second week of the fair.

If you want to see polka in person before the fair, the Polka Club of Iowa will be in the Iowa State Fair parade the day before the fair begins.

By the way, who likes to see the chicken dance in action? Everybody.