The annual "Back to the '50s" show features more than 11,000 cars and 300 vendors. Each show has a craft fair, an auction, a swap meet, camping, merchandise, music groups and more. So how does the Minnesota Street Rod Association (MSRA) - the group behind the three-day, 36-year-old, fill-the-State Fairgrounds-to-bursting event - mount one of the country's largest car shows? The simple answer is volunteers, most drawn from the ranks of its all-volunteer membership. But for a few volunteers, simple doesn't describe their dedication.

Randi and Ted Jacobson, for example, have put in thousands of hours handling everything to do with the show's commercial vendors over the last 11 years. Randi says that helping the club - the couple has greatly increased the number of vendors at shows - and socializing with members keeps them motivated.

And then there's Carol Koop. A recently retired secretary for medical examiners, she says she admires classics and street rods and the skill involved in restoring and creating them. She and her husband have a '52 Buick Riviera and her brother is a longtime MSRA board member who twice has had cars up for the show's "Car of the Year" award. But that hardly explains why she puts in 30 to 40 hours a week for months before each show scheduling volunteer shifts. And it certainly doesn't explain having to work through most of the show as well.

Koop, who's scheduled nearly 2,000 volunteers into more than 4,000 shifts for seven years, admits her MSRA "job" can be frustrating. And she's lost count of how many times club members have told her they'd never do her job. So what motivates her? She says she's made many friends, enjoys the detail-oriented work and feels a sense of accomplishment. "I do it with pride," she says of her MSRA volunteering, "and I feel a responsibility to the volunteers and the club because the show is our only money-maker." Because of her work, she hears a lot of "God bless yous" and hearty "thank yous" from members.

MSRA President Jim Harvey says volunteers like Carol Koop and the Jacobsons "often put their efforts for the club ahead of their personal needs. They put 100 percent into it and our members really appreciate their efforts." But 100 percent probably doesn't adequately describe things. Koop, for example, took a computer class just so she could make programs do what she needed them to do for the MSRA. "It may take a lot of time but," she explains, "I also have fun."