Camas County Fair

On Main Street in Fairfield, next to the Pocket Park, the Camas County Fair Board parked a prairie schooner for the 2026 fair. The board called it an authentic covered wagon, and it still carried its original canvas cover. It stood there for the year’s theme, “Prairie Roots & Pioneer Boots.” The board’s notice asked visitors to admire it and, in capitals, not to climb in or on it. Storefront windows had been decorated for the fair. The County Courthouse took first place and the Wrangler Drive-In took second.

The fair is the county’s summer gathering, run by the Camas County Fair Board. The City of Fairfield lists what it holds: 4-H market animals, 4-H projects, music at the park, vendors, rides, a kids’ bike parade, and a street dance. The county’s page gave the 2026 dates as July 30 through August 2. The fair’s own page gave July 29 through August 2, and its posts treat the 29th as a day of prep work and incoming exhibits.

From the Legion hall to the park

Open Class entries went to the American Legion on the 29th and the morning of the 30th. The board’s call was open to anyone: “Did you make something you’re especially proud of?!? Bring it to the American Legion and show it off for the rest of the community to enjoy!!!” Kaylee Perron, listed by the county as board secretary, took the questions.

On the evening of July 30, children met at the school at 5:15 to decorate their bikes and rode to the park at 5:45. The 2026 board billed the ride as “Paul Revere’s Ride (aka Kids’ Bike Parade).” On the county’s page, the bike parade appears headed for Kids Night. The carnival opened the same day, with exhibits at the park. On the 31st the board posted “one more addition to the Pioneer display.”

Friday, July 31, brought food, music, the Community Quilt, and a volleyball car wash until two. The board sent fairgoers to Frozen Nostalgia for snow cones, to LaDonna Rossellini for soft pretzels, and to Camas Kettle Corn for kettle corn. A soccer tournament was played thanks to Wolf One Farms.

Saturday, August 1, was parade day. The board’s morning post read: “Our busiest day, but oh what fun we’ll have! Good Luck 4-Hers!” Sunday opened with “Breakfast with the Legion and Praises with your neighbor!” By that evening the board had posted that the 2026 fair was “a wrap.” It held an after-action meeting at City Hall later in August, open to the public.

The quilt outlasted the fair. Volunteers had cut fabric in July, and some took kits with cutting templates home. By September 14 the board had 25 of 84 squares back from its sewing volunteers.

Grand Marshals from Soldier Mountain

The 2026 Grand Marshals were Claude and Karen Hinkle. They met in high school in Indio, California, and married in September 1960. Claude worked in the grocery business while studying and graduated from USC in business, while Karen worked at General Telephone. Claude then took up flying and managed a flight school in Chino. From 1976 to 1996 he flew aerial photography missions for the government and logged more than 10,000 hours.

In 1971 Karen’s father, Dr. Wallace Wheeler, bought Soldier Mountain Ski Area at Fairfield, and her cousin David Wheeler came to manage it. The Hinkles followed in 1972, when their children were in 7th and 4th grade. Summers went to the children’s 4-H, and Claude helped Bob Froshinson on his farm. After about eight years managing the ski area, the couple opened Claude’s Sports on Main Street, selling and renting ski equipment. They owned and ran Soldier Mountain themselves from 1988 to 1992.

They now spend winters in Mazatlán. The fair board’s profile says Fairfield remains home, where they watch deer come through the yard, “sometimes twelve at a time.”

A parade seen from both sides

A Southern Idaho Living roundup of the region’s fairs, dated 2008 and carrying listings for 2011, described the Camas County Fair of its day. It listed 4-H competitions, a livestock show and sale, a bike race, a volleyball tournament, and Sunday music in the park. Bed races ran down Main Street, with competitors tucked into their beds and the best time in each heat moving on. A rodeo had recently been added.

The Saturday parade, the writer held, was “probably the only parade that you get to see both sides.” It went down Main Street, turned at the end of the route, and came back, and readers were told to bring a large sack for the candy. Connie Funkhouser, then Fair Board Secretary, put it this way: “The fair is the biggest thing all year. We’re a small community, but during the fair a lot of people come to town. There’s lots of stuff to do.”

The candy kept coming. The county’s page shows board members throwing it at the 2021 parade, alongside Steve Moore and his train. The same page shows a board fundraiser that year, a donkey basketball game, with Michelle Dalin handing off the ball for the Bad Assassin Team.

That summer, Kenny and Bonnie Cox of Fairfield bought a rare 1860s Civil War supply wagon from a retired collector in Hayden, Idaho. Kenny is a Fairfield native and the great-grandson of Andrew Hess, who drove the Big Hitch for the Lewis Fast Freight company over Trail Creek Summit in the 1880s and 1890s. The couple spent about a week on the wagon, taking off the wheels and checking every pin. In the early 1860s the wood-and-iron wagon had carried ammunition, food, tents, stoves, and pans to cavalry troops. They drove it for the first time at the Camas County Fair.