DES MOINES – A little more than a month after earning the crown at the Tama County Fair, Belle Werner of Toledo has added another — this time representing the entire state of Iowa.
Werner was crowned the 2026 Iowa State Fair Queen last Saturday evening, Aug. 15, on the Anne and Bill Riley Stage in Des Moines, rising to the top of a field of 103 county fair queens from across Iowa. She becomes just the second Tama County representative to win the state title and the first since Rebecca Earles of Traer was crowned in 1997.
For Werner, the road to the state crown was actually two years in the making. She first competed for Tama County Fair Queen in 2025, when she was selected as fair princess from a field of four candidates. She returned this summer and was crowned the 2026 Tama County Fair Queen on July 14 in Gladbrook, selected from a field that included Violet Jackson of rural Garwin and Kenzie Bartel of rural Marshalltown…