By CHRIS DETTRO - The (Springfield) State Journal-Register
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- A guy can have only so much fun with a Giant Slide.
At least that's how Dennis Herrington, who has been sole owner of the Giant Slide at the Illinois State Fairgrounds since 1995, sees it.
He's now 57 years old, has had health problems and has no children at home to help him operate the iconic structure just inside the Main Gate of the fairgrounds.
So he's hoping to sell it before this year's fair starts in August.
"You don't just go put a 'for sale' sign on it," he said. Instead, he's working with Prairie State Bank & Trust and through word of mouth to find a buyer. Asking price: $175,000.
The slide, which Herrington said is about 40 feet high and 130 feet long, was erected in 1968 by private owners. Pam Gray, state fair historian, said she wasn't immediately sure who built the slide.
But a total of 208,807 tickets were sold at 25 cents apiece during the 1968 state fair, making the new slide the fair's most popular attraction, according to newspaper archives. About 29,000 tickets were sold the first Sunday of the fair.
The Bud Shymansky family purchased the slide in time for the 1973 fair and operated it until 1993, when Springfield businessmen Herrington, Lars Buchloh, David Mayes and Steve Vincent bought it.
By 1995, Herrington had bought out the other partners, who were concentrating on their other businesses.
Springfield's Giant Slide isn't unique among state fairs. Herrington estimates that 30 to 40 other state fairs also have giant slides.
But the one here has gained some notoriety over the years.
Gov. Jim Thompson made it a tradition to ride down the slide with his family - and once with a visiting Chinese dignitary - after cutting the ribbon to open the state fair. He did that all but one of his 14 years as governor. He missed 1986 because the operator couldn't get proof of liability insurance until noon of the day after the fair opened, then it rained in the afternoon.
The first state fair for Herrington and his partners was in 1993, which also was the first year for a transformed and renovated Adventure Village, formerly called Kiddieland. Adventure Village is privately operated. It still operates during the warmer months even when the state fair isn't in session.
But Herrington opens the slide only for special events, such as this weekend's Farm Bureau convention. He just doesn't have the time or the inclination anymore.
"The kids are grown, I'm getting up in age, and I've had a few inner-ear problems," he said. "People in real estate always talk about not falling in love with the property. It was a lot of fun when the kids were younger.
"I'd just like to do things to make life a little easier."
"And liability insurance isn't cheap," he added. "You can't just go down to State Farm and buy that. You have to go find it."
His youngest daughter is away at veterinary school, and his oldest daughter works as a designer for Abercrombie & Fitch in Columbus, Ohio.
"You want family in the booth taking money," he said. "We were there from the time we opened until the time we closed every day. I only hired family or friends of my kids."
Herrington said he has picked up several clients for his full-time insurance/financial planning business from operating the slide. There also is a prestige factor.
"It was kind of neat when people would say, 'Oh, you're the guy who owns the Giant Slide,'" he said.
"It's a family thing. You also see a lot of people you see only once a year at the fair. We'd have families come back year after year to go down the slide."
The slide apparently does stir memories - some good, some bad, but always exciting.
Susie McClure of Taylorville said the State Fair Parade and opening night is important to her family, and that includes a ride down the Giant Slide.
When she started dating her future husband eight years ago, she was reluctant to go down the slide, but was eager to participate in his family's traditions.
"The food was delicious and the slide and the Sky Ride were wonderful," she said. "I survived and vowed to take part the following year."
The next year was different.
"Apparently they had greased the slide and only a few people had gone down before us," she said. "After the first hill, I didn't touch the slide again until the end. At the bottom, my feet hit and I flipped head over heels."
Her husband and his family still ride the slide every year. But after a rug burn, bruises and much embarrassment, she hasn't been back.
"I'm too chicken now," she said. "But it was quite a ride down that time."
Megan Mander's entire family was watching when her father, Rich Mander, took her as a 3-year-old down the slide for the first time in 1987.
She said the story is that he didn't have a tight enough grip on her, and at the second or third bump, she flew several feet in the air and landed right back in her father's lap.
"I came away unscathed and with no traumatic fears of that Giant Slide!" she wrote in an email.
Herrington said that Shad Shymansky, Bud's son, helped the new owners operate the slide the first two years so they could learn the ropes.
He said he's in the final year of an $8,200-a-year, four-year lease with the fair, but doesn't anticipate any trouble renewing it if he can't sell the slide.
"It's always been easy to negotiate with them," he said.
Herrington said a new buyer could probably dismantle and move the bright yellow slide in a day - if they wanted to.
"It could be moved," he said. "It's on scaffolding, and there are probably 24 to 30 sections. But it's one of the landmarks of the state fair."
Herrington said he sold 47,000 ride tickets in 1995, the last year Happy Hollow was located in the sunken grassy area south of the Exposition Building. The carnival area had been there since 1907, but was moved to the area west of the Fire Station in 1996.
He says he now sells between 25,000 and 30,000 rides during the fair each year, at $3 a ride or two rides for $5.
"It would benefit a lot of the vendors, not just myself, if they'd move Happy Hollow back to where it was," he said.
He also thinks someone could make an additional $25,000 to $30,000 annually by opening the slide for special events, even opening it for picture-taking purposes.
"If I can find a buyer, great," he said.
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