'I'm fearless': How a 95-year-old caterwauled her way to a Husband Calling blue ribbon

Christie Lewis came to the Iowa State Fair to fight a plague affecting the entire husband community.

Selective hearing.

And from the caterwauling, yowling, squawking, yelping, booming and boisterous screaming coming from Pioneer Hall, she and the 17 other women who took part in this year’s Husband Calling Contest just may have found the cure.

“We were here today to make sure that they could not tune us out,” she said.

The novelty of the fair’s husband calling found viral fame this winter when a video of an old Iowa PBS segment garnered 3 million likes on TikTok. Friday morning, the internet sensation became a real, live, in-person phenomena to the delight of the largest crowd the contest has ever drawn, said Regina Pirtle, Pioneer Hall’s superintendent.

Contestants ranged from a German TV journalist, whose husband will find out that she competed when her package airs this weekend; to first-time fairgoers from Virginia, New York and Florida who wanted “the true Iowa State Fair experience”; to longtime entrants like the eventual blue-ribbon winner, Bonnie Swalwell Eilert, a legend around Pioneer Hall whose triumph was a high-water mark in a year stained with grief.

“It feels wunderbar,” she said after the contest. “I love it. I have other blue ribbons, too, but, oh, this is precious.”

Husband calling techniques: An aria, a skit and a tap routine

The Husband Calling Contest has been a fair favorite for at least 40 years, Pirtle said, but husband calling itself goes back to whenever Iowa wives got tired of walking all the way out into the fields to tell their spouse supper was ready.

“We started this because years ago the men usually were out in the fields working and there was no communication between them (and their wives) except maybe a dinner bell or maybe a voice,” Pirtle said. “So these are women that are kind of interpreting how it might have been to try to get your husband in ― for one reason or another.”

Indeed, some contestants went with the classic squall of their husband’s name, while others added the additional flair of an opera aria or a themed skit ― many of which reflected the mild frustrations of co-habitation.

Some women trotted out old standards like bemoaning a husband not replacing the toilet paper or yelling that a husband should wear “shorts! Shorts! I said, SHORTSSSSS!” Another contestant put a modern twist on her shout by telling her husband to “stop gaming and turn off the dang computer!”

“Get in hereeeeee and make mmmmmyyyyyyy dinner,” screamed Wendy Bryce, who grew up yelling for her farmer dad in Moville. “Chikennnnnnn! Greeennnn beannns! Taterrrrrsssss!” Bryce went the extra mile and busted out a tap routine as a final exclamation point.

At least two other competitors took the idea of hunting down a husband literally: “ANYONE! ANYONE!” shouted one. “I’m looking for a HUSBAND. Isn’t this THE contest?”

And still others came outfitted in full costume. Lewis dressed in her morning fineries, complete with hair curlers and a robe and matching slippers.

“My mindset coming in today was really I wanted to show you guys what I deal with every morning,” said Lewis, a transplant from Michigan who moved to Iowa three years ago. “This is really what I look like every single morning, and normally that's the time when I'm screaming my husband's name.”

Securing the fifth-place ribbon, Lewis had plans to return for hog calling later. “I figured hog and husband calling, it's pretty much the same thing,” she said.

'I'm fearless': How a 95-year-old snatched the blue ribbon

Dressed in an old-timey lace shawl and beflowered bonnet, Eilert, the eventual champion, combined all the others’ tactics into her epic screech.

“Roy! Roy! ROYYYYYYYYYYYY!” she yelled from her scooter just in front of the stage. “Please come to me. Please! Please! PLEASSSSSEEEEE! I want to go to the dance.”

After a few more PLEASSSEEES, she capped her performance with a high-pitched, “I love you!!!!!!”

At 95 years old — or as Bonnie likes to classify: “I’m older than dirt” — she’s been coming to the State Fair nearly as far back as she can remember. Her parents were farmers, and she married a farmer, so, in August, it’s just what you did, you came to Des Moines, she says.

About four decades ago ― when she first started getting unsteady on her feet ― her daughter Sheryl bought a camper so they could stay on the fairgrounds instead of making the hike back and forth to Newton. She’s been spending her nights at the same site ever since, and passes her days tending to the First Church, a historical prairie church in the fair’s Heritage Village area.

Eilert has been entering the Husband Calling Contest since it began about 40 years ago, she says. But it’s hard to keep track, she admits. This contest is just one of many she enters, one of many of her “adventures,” as she calls them.

“I’m fearless,” she says. “My husband was so against it. He says, ‘Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare.’ ‘I’m going to do it,’ I said.”

So she entered and won: “He left me alone after that. He was proud of me.”

More: How a spaghetti sandwich led to the State Fair-winning deep-fried bacon brisket grilled cheese

Roy died nearly a decade ago, and Sheryl ― Bonnie’s State Fair sidekick and her live-in caretaker ― died very suddenly this year. Being at the fair without her has been “pretty horrific,” she says.

But attending some of the contests that Sheryl loved so much has been a bit of salve.

“Yes, it’s brought me some comfort because people ask about my dear, charming child,” she says, clutching her ribbon and her winnings, a whopping $15. “Everybody's just made my day.”

Unlike some of the other entrants, Eilert didn’t come in with a particular gameplan.

“I just opened up my mouth and started screaming,” she says. “Surely, when I heard all those ladies screeching, I thought, ‘Oh, I’ll never make it.’”

But judge Rob Sand said that Eilert’s genuine gentleness pushed her ahead of her competition. The other entrants took their calls in an angry and annoyed direction, he said, but she ended with, “I love you!!!!”

“And you win more friends with honey than vinegar,” he said.

As Eilert left Pioneer Hall, a fellow contestant ― who’d leaned on her pregnancy when shouting to her husband that “This baby is COMING!” ― took a photo with the the blue-ribbon champion and asked her for the key to a good marriage.

Simple, Eilert said: Communication.

Courtney Crowder, the Register's Iowa Columnist, traverses the state's 99 counties telling Iowans' stories. Her State Fair food must-get is the Bauder's Peppermint Bar. Don't be ashamed to have seconds! Reach her at ccrowder@dmreg.com or 515-284-8360. Follow her on Twitter @courtneycare.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa State Fair: How a 95-year-old snatched Husband Calling victory