Poll: Do You Know What A Kybo Is?
- Thread starter Macloney
- Start date
I spent most of my life in Iowa and I've never heard of kybo (from Davenport - no idea if that means anything).
CycloneErik
Well-Known Member
That's how you find soldiers during a recon mission. Those things mean you're really close.
You just have to hope that you don't find it rocking.
You just have to hope that you don't find it rocking.
Yes, but I'm not going to call it that ever.
Always thought it was kybo and that it was taken from a name brand. I don't really have any idea though.
I know what it means but I have never called it that.
Yes I do. I delivered a baby in one in 1995.
Too wierd. I conceived a baby in one in 1994.
That may have been slightly more pleasant than delivering one. I assume alcohol was involved in your experience.
I lived in eastern Iowa until I was 7 and then western Iowa until I was 13. Never heard it called a "kybo" until I moved to central Iowa after that. Now that I've lived out of state for the six years since college, I say it less and when I do, people have no idea what I'm referring to.
We said it in central Iowa, but nobody anywhere else I've lived called them that. I lived in TN and KS and traveled extensively for work and I never heard it.
Let's face it, it doesn't come up a lot, but when you gotta go...
I'd always thought that Kybo was the name of the company than owned and maintained the porta potties in central Iowa. Not sure where I got that idea.
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/kybo
Be careful what you ask for. This will be absolutely more than you want to know. This is after some idle web surfing off and on over several years and is more of an over view than an academic research project. Some bits and pieces may be considered apocryphal, but seem to ring true.
The term “kybo” seems to originate from summer camps, both in scouting or other private camps and more in the northeast referring to a brand of flour that came in cans that were repurposed to store the lye used to control odor in outhouses.
I first heard the term on Tagbrai (Third annual bike ride across Iowa, IIRC) I don’t know if the first RAGBRAI actually had an acronym.
Kaul and Karras in a column just sort of invited people to ride across the state with them and woke to find several hundred people waiting outside their motel. The second ride was SAGBRAI (Second Annual Great …) and the third one was TAGBRAI (Third annual ...). At that point, it was evidently an unsustainable naming convention and became RAGBRAI.
For that year and several years after, the porta-potties were actually branded “KYBO”. This should actually be a case study in a marketing course. They had “Kybo” branded tank tops and sweatbands. Even an unofficial and ad hoc Kybo queen was nominated. The war cry “Kybo” was yelled at the top of besotted lungs during all hours of the night. That no longer happens; you just hear doors slamming into the morning.
One of my sources suggested the word is endemic to two subcultures, those of summer camps of the northeast and RAGBRAI. Given the place the bike ride has in Iowa culture, I would accuse you of not being a true Iowan if you don’t know what the word means.
KYBO RECYCLING
The term “kybo” seems to originate from summer camps, both in scouting or other private camps and more in the northeast referring to a brand of flour that came in cans that were repurposed to store the lye used to control odor in outhouses.
I first heard the term on Tagbrai (Third annual bike ride across Iowa, IIRC) I don’t know if the first RAGBRAI actually had an acronym.
Kaul and Karras in a column just sort of invited people to ride across the state with them and woke to find several hundred people waiting outside their motel. The second ride was SAGBRAI (Second Annual Great …) and the third one was TAGBRAI (Third annual ...). At that point, it was evidently an unsustainable naming convention and became RAGBRAI.
For that year and several years after, the porta-potties were actually branded “KYBO”. This should actually be a case study in a marketing course. They had “Kybo” branded tank tops and sweatbands. Even an unofficial and ad hoc Kybo queen was nominated. The war cry “Kybo” was yelled at the top of besotted lungs during all hours of the night. That no longer happens; you just hear doors slamming into the morning.
One of my sources suggested the word is endemic to two subcultures, those of summer camps of the northeast and RAGBRAI. Given the place the bike ride has in Iowa culture, I would accuse you of not being a true Iowan if you don’t know what the word means.
KYBO RECYCLING