The captain knocked on his camper door early, before 5 a.m., so Steve Roberts was in a bit of a rush to put on his uniform and his white cowboy hat and begin another season with the Minnesota State Fair Mounted Patrol.
"This is my 50th year," said Roberts, 75. "Maybe I'll have a few more good ones."
Back in 1969, when Roberts joined the fair's civilian patrol, his primary duty was to ride the perimeters to stop scofflaws from jumping the fence. He and his steady palomino, Tera, the first of five horses to work with him at the fair, would also patrol the parking lots at night, stepping in to help people find their way back to their cars.
Now, Roberts and the 15 other patrol members, clad in white shirts with a brown and yellow patch on the shoulder, manage the "changeover" operations in the livestock barns, helping park 30-foot trailers as farmers bring out cows or pigs that have already been shown, and bring in new animals.
They also help with crowd control, parting the sea of people so vehicles and animals can come through, and bring kids to the lost-and-found area, lead the fair's daily 2 p.m. parade, and say yes to child after child who wants to pet their horses.
"It becomes a petting zoo out here," Roberts said. "Kids get a thrill. You can't say no. You've got to let them pet the horse. And these horses, they like to be petted," he said, referring to Hickory, the 14-year-old bay quarter horse he rides now.
"Yeah, go ahead," he said to a fair fan. "Pet him on the leg. Touch him right here in front, son."
Roberts, who lives in Stacy, Minn., has been retired for years. But back when he worked at the Unisys computer manufacturing plant in Roseville, he would put in for vacation the last two weeks of summer every year, and spend it working at the fair.