Benton County Fair

Every night of the Benton County Fair & Rodeo ends at the main stage. The seating is outdoors and first come, first served. Fairgoers bring blankets and lawn chairs, and the concerts come with gate admission. In 2026 the fair ran from Wednesday, July 29, through Saturday, August 1, eleven in the morning to midnight, on the county fairgrounds off 53rd Street. The theme that summer was “Stars, Stripes and Summer Nights.” The badge on the posters was a “Cow Tag” drawn by Cassandra “CJ” Judd, a Corvallis creative director whose design won a countywide public contest called the Design Rodeo.

The Funporium is the main building, on the central plaza. It holds robotics and train displays, a parent relief area, and shopping. Around it are 4-H and FFA livestock in the barns, open-class floral and craft displays, a Master Gardener demonstration garden, and the Oak Grove Stage. There are also food vendors, a taphouse, a carnival midway run by Rainier Amusement, and performers roaming the grounds. The Corvallis Lions Club keeps a “Burger Barn” on the grounds during the fair.

Each day has its own program. Wednesday in 2026 was Family Day, with the gate free to children 16 and under. The Larry Bell Memorial All Girls Rodeo was in the arena. From 6 p.m. the main stage had Bright Hearts Circus, the Matt Baker Comedy Stunt Show and Jeff Martin Magic & Hypnosis. Thursday was Senior Day:

• free entry for anyone 60 or older
• an ice cream social and bingo in the morning
• a VIP area near the stage
• the Fair Foundation’s barbecue dinner in the evening

The NPRA rodeo opened Thursday night and ran again Friday. Saturday began with the Willamette Valley Fiddle Contest and the Lee Allen Memorial Youth Market Auction. A beard, mustache and goatee competition was also on the bill.

The winner of Thursday’s battle

Thursday afternoon and evening belong to the Battle of the Bands, where local and regional acts compete for the opening slot on Friday night. In 2026 the winner played at 7 p.m. ahead of Queen Nation, a four-piece Queen tribute band founded in Los Angeles in 2004. Saturday was Country Night. Jacquie Roar opened at 7. She is an Oregon Jamboree veteran who finished fourth on Season 24 of NBC’s “The Voice.” Hunter Hayes followed at 8:30.

The winner’s slot has once become the top of the bill. Completely Unchained, a Van Halen tribute, was scheduled to headline at 8:30 p.m. on Friday, August 1, 2025. Severe weather kept the band from reaching Corvallis in time. Organizers learned this late Thursday night and gave the headline spot to The Raven Kings, who had won the Battle of the Bands that day. The runner-up, Skynny Lyzyrd, opened. “Both of the bands were thrilled at the opportunity to play the Main Stage at the Fair, and we’re happy to turn this into a paying gig for them,” said Jesse Ott, the county’s director of natural areas, parks and events.

Girls in the arena

The All Girls Rodeo honors Larry Bell, a longtime rodeo supporter. In the county’s words, his commitment to youth and agriculture helped shape Benton County’s rodeo community. The event draws competitors from around the Northwest and helped inspire a second contest, the Spring Stampede All Girls Rodeo. In July 2026 the fair announced a partnership with Premier Women’s Rodeo. The deal made the Larry Bell the first official qualifying rodeo for that national organization in the Pacific Northwest. Champions in seven events qualify for the Premier Women’s Rodeo Championship, set for May 2027 at Cowtown Coliseum in Fort Worth, Texas. The events are team roping, breakaway roping, goat tying, pole bending, barrel racing, ranch bronc riding and bull riding. “Fair and rodeo is community,” said Nicole Schrock, who chairs the Benton County Rodeo Committee and was the 2007 Benton County Fair & Rodeo Queen.

The county traces the queen custom to Oregon, where the first official rodeo queen in the world was crowned at the 1910 Pendleton Round-Up. The Benton County program began in 2001 with a court. Since 2003 it has had a single titleholder, and 2026 was its Silver Jubilee. Contestants are judged on public speaking, horsemanship and knowledge. Jessica McLennan was crowned the 2026 queen on February 7 at the Fairgrounds Event Center, after a decade in 4-H. “Since I was 6, I’ve looked up to the rodeo queens,” she said. The 2026 season was the last for Willow, the horse she grew up with, which she planned to retire from competition after the year.

The program is run by Kristi Schrock, chair of the Benton County Fair Board, who in 2026 marked her 20th year as its adviser. The Corvallis Advocate spells her first name Christy. “You get up at 2:30 in the morning to wash the horse, get everything ready, get it loaded up, make your way across the mountain pass,” she told the county. Two former queens help her:

• Jesse Crampton, queen in 2019, came back in 2021 to assist with pageants and coronations.
• Adrienne Montgomery, queen in 2015, sees to horses, tack and snacks. She travels with the court to the Philomath Frolic, the Sisters Rodeo and the Fourth of July circuit.

“The former queens come back and help the new ones,” Montgomery said.

Blue ribbons and twenty acres

The fair is older than its arena. Benton County’s accounts date it to the early days of Oregon statehood, when the Benton Agricultural Society began holding small fairs to show local agriculture. Senator Wyden, in a 2014 statement in the Congressional Record, placed the first of them just seven months after statehood. By Wyden’s account, the county’s produce took the Oregon State Fair’s blue ribbon five times: in 1907, 1908, 1910, 1911 and 1912. In 1912 J.F. Yates, mayor of Corvallis, declared a public holiday to mark the showing. In 1913 the county held its first official fair on the grounds of Oregon Agricultural College, now Oregon State University. Wyden wrote that the county brought out “its finest produce, livestock, and technology.”

In 1957 the county bought 20 acres in Corvallis, the fair’s present home. Wyden dates the arrival of Future Farmers of America and 4-H to 1958. The county’s own accounts say only that over the years the fair grew to take in 4-H, FFA, carnival rides, live music and rodeo. In April 1999 the Benton County Fairgrounds Foundation was established “for the purpose of preserving the proud agrarian heritage of Benton County.” It raises money for improvements to the grounds.

The centennial fell in 2013. Betty Malone, the fair and rodeo committee chair, proposed a quilt to mark it. Dawn Wunder and Donna Johnson led the work, and dozens of community members decorated its patches. Wyden entered his statement on July 30, 2014, the week the 101st fair opened, and noted that the quilt would be presented in a ceremony that day.

The sale ring on Saturday

At the 4-H and FFA auction, a banner hangs bearing the name of Wilson Lee Allen. Allen (1919–1992) worked for the federal Agriculture Stabilization and Conservation Service. For decades he spent the months while young members raised their animals, as the Corvallis Lions Club puts it, “beating the streets to find prominent businessmen, publicity-seeking politicians, anonymous benefactors, and well-heeled supporters of youthful enterprise” to come and bid.

The Lions have been the auction’s lead sponsor since 1948, and Allen was a club member from 1958 to 1992. Before he died he recruited Marc Vomocil and Steve Pilkerton to carry the work on. Vomocil has not missed an auction since joining the team in 1991. The Lions write that in 2023 alone the auction raised just shy of $1 million.

Bill Dowless called the bids from 1959 until his death in 1997. He went to auctioneering school in Indiana after graduating from Gold Hill High School in 1950. In 1959 he and his father, Carl, bought the Corvallis Auction Yard, which they ran until 1972. A remembrance of him describes how he worked the ring with Rich Guerber and fellow auctioneer John Hanger. The three would joke and banter until the crowd erupted in laughter and the bidding grew. Hanger has returned to sell many auctions since. The Bill Dowless Livestock Pavilion, built in 1998, connects the sheep and swine barns with added covered space.

Rich Guerber (1923–2000) volunteered with the fair for close to fifty years and served on the fair board. During fair week he organized the sheep dog trials, supervised the Livestock Association’s barbecue, helped run the auction, and made “sure the rodeo went okay.” If 4-H or the fairgrounds needed something, his remembrance says, “he bought it, begged it, borrowed it or built it!” His only son and daughter-in-law, Ron and Patty, were killed in an automobile accident. Afterward he encouraged people to give to the Fairgrounds Foundation in their names. He often described himself as just an old farmer.

In 2021 the auction went on when most of the fair did not. That May, citing COVID-19 restrictions and high case rates, the county canceled the concerts, rodeo and carnival. The fairgrounds worked with OSU Extension to hold modified in-person 4-H animal shows. They ended with the Lee Allen Memorial Youth Livestock Auction on Saturday, August 7.