For 6 generations working Peters Hot Dogs and Corn Roast, State Fair is an annual reunion
FALCON HEIGHTS, Minn. -- The State Fair is full of family legacies, but not everyone can claim six generations working at the Fair at the same time. Three sisters have helped start an empire at the Great Minnesota Get-Together.
For more than 50 years, sisters Lu McArdell, Lori Ribar, and Lynn Meadows have been working at the Minnesota State Fair. It all began at Peters Hot Dogs, which their great grandfather essentially started.
"In 1939 we started selling hot dogs and lunch meat sandwiches for a nickel," McArdell said.
Now, she and Meadows work long days in the Food Building, surrounded by employees who also happen to be family.
"We have six generations behind the stand right now," Meadows said.
Ribar was part of that crew too, until the mid-1980s. That's when she fell in love ... at the State Fair, of all places.
"I met my husband out here at the Fair in '77, at the back room of the Peters hot dog stand talking about college classes," she said.
She and her husband, Brad, opened up another popular stand -- the Corn Roast -- in 1985.
The sisters now live in different cities. Meadows is in Mesa, Arizona. The State Fair is the one time they're all together, selling food, playing pranks, and doing what they've done since they were kids: enjoying the Great Minnesota Get-Together.
In addition to Peters Hot Dogs and the Corn Roast, Meadows' son Matt has Duke's Poutine stand, and McArdell's daughter runs another hot dog stand in the Kidway.
