Cassia County Fair & Rodeo

There is no gate to pay at the Cassia County Fairgrounds on Elba Avenue in Burley. “We don’t charge a gate admission. So people come and then the community spends... their week at the fair,” fair board vice-president Paul Marchant told KMVT in August 2026. The 2026 fair ran nine days. It opened with a horse show and closed with a sold-out rodeo, and in between the grounds filled with livestock barns, an exhibit hall, a midway, and food trucks.

The trucks serve corn dogs and cotton candy, Mexican street tacos and barbecue ribs. One fairgoer, named by KMVT only as Carlson, had his order planned: “Well, I am gonna get Robin’s Roost and a crepe and I just pretty much came here to have all the food.” A free stage on the south lawn takes local entertainers, and through the 2026 fair the comedy hypnotist Boris Cherniak gave shows there several times a day at no cost. Local businesses fill the Commercial Building with wares and giveaway drawings. Brown’s Amusements runs the carnival off Hiland Avenue, east of the ICCU Arena and just north of Walgreens, and closes it at 10 PM each night. Carlson’s favorite ride was what he called “the Dumbo recreation.”

Showmanship at the Jack Funk Pavilion

Through fair week, 4-H and FFA members show cows, pigs, sheep, goats, and dogs at barns and rings across the grounds. At the Outdoor Jack Funk Pavilion, the beef showmanship class puts young exhibitors in the ring with what the fair calendar calls “large shampooed animals and curried steers.” Small animals go round robin in the Indoor Show Barn. The work starts months before August. “I know that we brought our sheep back during spring break, and I have four kids who are gonna be showing sheep this year,” Burley resident Brittany Casey told KMVT in 2025. Kylee Adams, an FFA member from Oakley, said, “I’m excited to show my steer.”

On Friday evening the local 4-H club opens a free petting zoo of goats, sheep, and rabbits at the pavilion. Saturday starts with a 7 AM breakfast in the show barn for the buyers. At 8 the Market Animal Sale opens at the Jack Funk Pavilion, free to the public, and the calendar’s instruction to the crowd is “Just raise your hand and bid!” Marchant counted 400 animals sold across two junior livestock sales at the 2026 fair.

The open class building holds the county’s baking, candy, and preserves, along with pottery, flowers and produce, quilts, sewing, photography, woodworking, leathercraft, and Lego and K’Nex builds. Ribbons score points: three for blue, two for red, one for white. The top scorer in each of four categories wins two Saturday night rodeo tickets and a gift certificate from Morey’s Steakhouse. The fair’s current list of Best Exhibitors gives Foods to Tina Williams, Handiwork to Elsa Tolman, and both Home and Art to Diana LeCheminant.

A parade on Wednesday morning

On Wednesday of fair week, parade entries form on West 27th Street, between Parke and Overland, and the parade steps off in downtown Burley at 10:30 AM. Judges score entries along the route. Handouts go to spectators from the edge of the street, never from a moving float. The fair livestreams the parade on Facebook, with the note “trust us, it is better in person.”

The 2026 parade, on August 19, ran under the theme “Rivers, Ranges and Rodeos.” Its grand marshals were Al and Kathy Barrus. Al Barrus served 36 years as Cassia County Prosecuting Attorney and 40 as attorney for the city of Oakley, and was known especially for his work in adoption law. The couple had most recently served a mission together in Brazil. Blair and Lana Bowers took first for Best Animal Drawn, ahead of the Minidoka Wranglers. DL Evans Bank won Best Theme, and the Cassia County Historical Museum placed third.

That evening the ICCU Arena holds team ranch sorting, free to watch. Three riders sort ten steers from one pen into another in numerical order, and the team that moves the most cattle in the least time wins. Earlier in the week, on Monday and Tuesday at 6:30 PM, local riders run obstacle courses on motorcycles and ATVs. Tickets are $5, and the show opens with a rider parade and the national anthem.

Three nights in the ICCU Arena

The arena’s first full night of the 2026 fair was a concert on Saturday, August 15: Lonestar, with Riley Evyn opening. Floor ticket holders brought their own seating, and a cash-only beer garden stood on the north end of the arena floor. Marchant reported a record crowd.

The PRCA rodeo closes the fair with three nights at 8 PM, Thursday through Saturday. Gates open at 7 and the pre-show begins at 7:15. At 7:30 comes mutton bustin: ten children a night, ages 5 to 7 and no heavier than 55 pounds, each riding a sheep as long as they can hold on. All three nights filled in 2026. Each night carries a cause:

• Thursday is Man-Up Crusade Night. The crowd wears purple for domestic violence awareness.
• Friday is Tough Enough to Wear Pink Night, for breast cancer awareness.
• Saturday is Patriotic Night, with the queen ceremony and the presentation of a Queen’s Saddle.

The Magic Valley 9/11 Memorial joined the 2026 opening ceremonies, and fireworks closed the last night.

The rodeo queen is chosen earlier in the week at a Queen Dinner at the Top Notch Events Center, where contestants model, perform, and give speeches. The 2026 queen, Emilee Pratt, is nineteen and grew up on a small family farm north of Rupert. She entered her first rodeo queen contest at twelve and won its Horsemanship award. She takes her motto from Cody Johnson’s “’Til You Can’t”: “If you’ve got a chance, take it, take it while you’ve got a chance.”

The bucking stock comes from Barnes PRCA Rodeo of Peterson, Iowa, founded in 1950, which supplied livestock to the first National Finals Rodeo in 1959. Its late founder, Bob Barnes, once told a reporter, “We are to rodeo – what Cadillac is to cars.” The announcer is Kade Rogge, a team roper turned announcer who ranches cattle in southern Idaho. The barrelman for 2025 was Randee Munns, past 75, who got his start in 1969 filling in when a clown didn’t show. He teaches welding at Bridgerland Technical College in Utah, and his students help build his props, among them an “Uber Cowboy Taxi” pulled by mini ponies and a cannon that fires t-shirts into the stands.

The 2026 rodeo drew more contestants than it had in years, the fair said. “We’ve been sold out for quite a while. And people are still trying to get tickets even though they’ve been gone for a while,” Marchant said. The results:

• Bareback: Keenan Hayes won with 88 points on the Barnes horse Bottle Cap, a new arena record.
• Steer wrestling: Dalton Massey threw his steer in 3.9 seconds.
• Team roping: Dustin Egusquiza and JC Flake stopped the clock at 4.0 seconds.
• Bull riding: Mason Moody and Colton Young tied.
• Barrel racing: Dr. Kathy Grimes won in 16.31 seconds, now the arena record. The fair’s Facebook page called it a world-record run and credited Matt Tegan, “our dirt pro,” with ground that produced “back to back world record breaking runs.”

On the fair’s last two afternoons the main rodeo arena turns over to pari-mutuel racing: Quarter Horse, Thoroughbred, and mixed-breed races, with a $10 ticket that includes the program. New in 2026, the Fort Hall Indian Relay Association ran Indian Horse Races in the middle of the card and at its end. The fair’s post that day read, “Indian Relay Races= EPIC!”

From Albion, 1909 or 1910

The fair spent its first decade in Albion, before Burley became the county seat, according to the Times-News. Its first year is disputed. The fair board, the Idaho Rodeo Hall of Fame, and a KIVI report all give 1910. Marchant, speaking at the 2025 opening, did not: “I believe the first fair was in 1909, some say it was 1910, but I’ve seen evidence that it was 1909, so we are gonna go with that.”

The Hall of Fame inducted the fair and rodeo in its Class of 2022. It calls the rodeo the oldest continuous professional rodeo in Idaho, one that draws contestants from the Wilderness Circuit and beyond to its “old grandstands.” By then Marchant had served on the board close to 20 years. A former board member, Dennis Crane, told KIVI, “I am very proud of this fair and this county and I’ve got a lot invested to it and I know its going to keep going.”

The board, under president Trevor Stapleman, divides the work line by line. Secretary-treasurer Carla Beck handles ticketing and beer sales. Todd Powers takes the rodeo, the queen contest, and the turkeys and rabbits. Ryan Taylor takes the horse races and the dogs. A separate Cassia County Fair Foundation, chaired by Keely Richman, has paid for the “wild bunch” bleachers, the announcers booth, and a dairy barn, and plans a large building to replace the livestock barns.

The fair has set August 14–21, 2027, for its next edition, with rodeo nights on August 19, 20, and 21. On the arena’s record board as of September 2026, the oldest mark still standing is Kent Cooper’s 91-point saddle bronc ride, set in 1984.