Bannock County Fair

At 7 p.m. on the Monday of the 2026 Bannock County Fair, teenagers ages 13 to 17 went into the arena at Downey after calves. Fair Superintendent Piney Morrison gave East Idaho News the rules: “Teenagers ages 13 to 17 will compete to halter a calf and keep it inside a designated area for a set amount of time. The winner will take home the calf, valued at about $2,000.” The calf scramble was new to the Kids Rodeo that year. It was one of several additions to a fair that calls itself, on its own Facebook page, the “Best little fair in Idaho.”

The Bannock County Fairgrounds hold outdoor and indoor arenas, a covered pavilion, livestock barns, and an exhibit hall on West Center Street. Covered grandstands went up by 2023, the year the Idaho State Journal described bucking broncos and barrel racing under the new roof. A volunteer Fair Board runs the event. The Board of County Commissioners appoints its members to four-year terms.

Six days in Marsh Valley

The county listed the 2026 fair as August 1–8. East Idaho News counted six days, Monday, August 3, through Saturday, August 8, under the theme “Wild West Round-up.” On the Saturday before, August 1, the fair showed The Man From Snowy River in the park at 9:30 p.m. The Facebook page told people to bring chairs, blankets and treats, because no vendors would be there that night.

Skip Ewing headlined on Monday at 5:30 p.m. He has recorded country hits of his own and has written chart-topping songs for Clint Black, Diamond Rio, Kenny Chesney and Collin Raye. Tuesday’s ranch rodeo drew 10 teams. “Compared to five teams last year,” Morrison said. “So that’s exciting.” The rodeo ran on Thursday and Friday nights, and music followed it: Keagan Park and Layne Bowen on Thursday, Dawson Moon and the Aaron Ball Band on Friday. Saturday brought a new monster truck show with half-scale cars, tough trucks and motocross. Horse pulls, a car show and the parade rounded out the week. With the heat holding on, water games were a big draw. Afterward the fair posted its thanks for “a great week full of fun, hot weather, great support and a lot of hard work behind the scenes.”

The Downey Area Business Association lists what the parade brings: horses, classic cars, floats, bands and cheerleaders. In 2026 the Mayor’s Choice award went to Ferox Lish, Best Theme to Gold Star Buddies, and Fair Board Choice to Lucky Clovers. In 2024 and 2025 the parade went through Downey on Wednesday evening, and a street dance on Main Street followed it.

The association also lists the food: booths, the Downey Steak Fry and the Lion’s Dinner. One concession on the grounds still goes by the Old Lions stand. In 2024 the fair opened at 6 p.m. Monday with the traditional Free Potato Bar, served by the Fair Board and Bannock County elected officials. Kid’s Day fills the park with jumpy houses, and the motocross races take riders of all ages and skill levels.

A steer that doesn’t always want to walk

The 4-H barns hold hogs, horses, cattle, chickens, rabbits and more. With the FFA exhibits and the livestock competitions, they are among the oldest fixtures of fair week. In the exhibit hall, entrants show art, food, produce, crafts and projects. On the eve of the 2026 fair, the Facebook page asked visitors to “walk past the rides and the games and find those livestock kids.” It asked them to fill the bleachers and watch the kids who practice “with a 1200 pound steer that doesn’t always want to walk, a 140 pound lamb that doesn’t want to get on the stand for the 100th time, a 280 pound hog that just wants to stay in the cool barn, a stubborn goat that doesn’t like the chain/halter or a 1,000 pound horse that has its own idea about how to run the barrel pattern.”

The bill around the livestock changes from year to year. In 2023 it included Neal McCoy, the “American Idol” top-20 singer Paige Anne, Idaho native Ellie Mae and newcomer Kaden Madden. The comedian Etta May, the self-proclaimed trailer park goddess, performed, along with the hypnotist Richard Barker, Lanky the Clown, and the mime Chris Yerlig, who was in attendance, the Journal noted, “albeit quietly.” Snake River Doodles brought a petting zoo, a dog show ran on Friday morning, and the Trash Car event went off at 6 p.m. Saturday. That year Fair Chairman Sheldon Barr told the Journal the fair draws tens of thousands of people to Downey. “We have lots of visitors from other counties and other states,” he said. In 2024 the theme was “Barnyard Beach Party,” and the fair booked sea lions for the first time, with shows Wednesday through Saturday.

Some have suggested moving the fair to Pocatello, the county seat. Morrison wants it to stay in Downey. “You can take the fair out of the country, but you can never take the country out of the fair,” she said.

Two fairs, then one

Pocatello once had a fair of its own. For years Bannock County held two fairs back to back in the first two weeks of August: the North Bannock Fair in Pocatello and the South Bannock County Fair in Downey. A 2014 CarnivalWarehouse report said both, by all accounts, began in the 19th century. County releases from 2023 and 2024 speak more loosely of “over a century” and “a century of tradition.”

In the spring of 2014 the county and its Fair Board fell out over who controlled the fairgrounds. Ian Service, chief deputy civil attorney, held that under county ordinance the board had only an advisory role over the grounds. Board chairman Dale Almond cited Idaho Statute 22-204, which he said gave the board authority over everything to do with the fairs, including the grounds. “We haven’t had a functional Fair Board for five months,” Almond said. The commissioners suspended the board pending an audit. “Bannock County will have our fairs this summer whether we have a board or not,” Service said.

The Journal counted more than 75 people at a town hall in the commission chambers that spring, and about 22 of them spoke. Service later put the crowd at more than 100. Two court marshals stood by. Commissioner Karl Anderson read the rules first: “There shall be no booing, hissing or cheering.” Then he answered the rumors. “The Downey fair is not going anywhere,” he said. Anderson had been a patron and participant in the South Bannock fair for more than 50 years. “I have never missed a fair.” Service described the fears in the room: “People are afraid that there won’t be a fair or that the fairgrounds will be sold because the buildings need repair.”

The fair that went was Pocatello’s. On January 28, 2015, after an executive session on personnel, Commissioner Steve Hadley moved to end the North Bannock Fair. The item was not on the agenda, and the motion carried unanimously. Two weeks later a packed house spent about 90 minutes on it, and the decision stood. Commission Chairman Howard Manwaring gave the figures. The north fair had drawn 21 4-H animal exhibits the previous year, 10 entrants in its dog show and 18 in its horse show. Downey had drawn 83 4-H animal exhibits and 65 horse show participants. The north fair had cost $67,519, or $135 per person by attendance. The south fair had cost $75,000, or $151 per person.

The fair of August 3–8, 2015, was the first held only in Downey. It had horse pulls in the Main Arena and the Downey Lions Club Rodeo on two nights. The free stage carried mutton busting, a hogwash round-up, “Chicken Shiz” bingo, a wipe-out slide and the annual Sweetheart Pageant.

Snow on the old halls

The buildings Service mentioned did not last much longer. A 2019 county request for designers describes three buildings that historically stood in a U along East Center Street. In the winter of 2016–2017, snow piled on the roof of the middle building, which joined the other two, and it collapsed. The board asked for a 50-by-120-foot multipurpose building to stand between the two survivors without touching them. The Idaho State Journal later wrote that the grounds had four exhibit buildings, and that the county condemned all of them for age and deterioration.

The condemnation came before the 2024 fair. That August there was no space to house or display exhibits: no artwork, no hand-quilted blankets, no pottery. The old halls had also held the 4-H books children keep for their animals and projects. D’Lyn Moser-Evans, chair of the fair board, described the old buildings: “(There) was no air conditioning. There wasn’t a whole lot of ventilation, so it was so hot in there… The wiring was old.” The board itself was meeting in the maintenance shed, around a table with “a little tiny heater,” she said. “There’s no air conditioning, there’s no windows.”

The old buildings came down after the 2024 fair. A groundbreaking for their replacement was held at 2 p.m. on Friday, December 6, 2024, on the south end of the grounds. That same week, organizers finished a new barn with better space for animals such as sheep. The Journal credited former board chair Sheldon Barfus as instrumental in getting the hall built. The county put in about $700,000, and federal American Rescue Plan Act money supplied $1 million. The finished Exhibit Hall measures about 8,500 square feet around a 50-by-90-foot open room for exhibits. It has a meeting room, offices, storage, restrooms, and a kitchen that Moser-Evans called “all stainless and state of the art.”

On the Monday evening that opened the 2025 fair, Commissioner Ernie Moser held the scissors. Facilities Director Dan Kendall stood on one side of him and Moser-Evans on the other. “When is the best time to plant a tree? Well, it was 30 years ago,” Moser said. “If you didn’t do it 30 years ago, then today is the best day to plant a tree. Ladies and gentlemen, we just planted the tree.”