Clark County Fair

In mid-August the livestock barn at Dubois fills with market steers, swine, sheep and goats, brought by Clark County 4-H members to the county fair. The 2026 fair ran August 13 through 15 under the theme “Stars, Stripes, and Summer Nights.” Dubois, pronounced Due-boys, is the county seat. It sits astride Interstate 15 at almost 6,000 feet, where the county describes warm summer days and cool nights. Clark County covers 1,765 square miles with fewer than one person to each of them. Its own motto runs, “Clark County is not just another County-it’s another Country!” Before the fair, a brochure with the event schedule goes out by mail to county residents, and the full fair book waits at the extension office. The fairgrounds also hold rodeos and other agricultural events.

Local residents enter their work in the open class contests. In 2025 the fair added pickleball and cornhole tournaments, and an Emergency Preparedness Fair ran alongside the regular program. That year’s theme was “A Gem of a Fair,” beginning August 14, and the fair book was printed in Spanish as well as English. Danette Frederiksen, who writes the Dubois news for the Jefferson Star, set the season in her July 2025 column: haying well underway, one crop already in, a second awaited, and potatoes blooming in the fields. The board planning that fair was Dee Taylor, Jolene Johnson, Marie Kellom Young, Kevin Small, Jill Grover, Judith Martinez and Michelle Ames.

The 4-H barn

The fair’s core is the 4-H program run through University of Idaho Extension in Clark County, whose educator is Joseph Sagers. According to the extension’s 2025 impact report, projects displayed at the fair rose by nearly 350 percent that year, and day camp attendance rose by 300 percent. The report counted 24 youth participants, 5 volunteers and 94 volunteer hours. The young people took up sewing, cooking, knitting, geology and botany. The livestock program covered market steers, swine and sheep, and in 2025 it added goats. The horse show sent three Clark County riders on to compete at the Eastern Idaho State Fair.

For 2026 the extension planned to widen the livestock program beyond market animals to include breeding and pet projects, and to add shooting sports for 4-H youth. Jill Grover, Kevin Small and Jolene Johnson, all fair board members, also sit on the extension’s advisory council.

Three days in August 2019

The Jefferson Star printed the 2019 schedule in full. On August 15, between 9 a.m. and noon, people brought in old photos, boots, hats, other antiques and handmade items for the open class. The 4-H projects were judged that morning. At 6 p.m. the livestock show and judging began, with a round robin after.

On August 16, 4-H members gave project demonstrations in the community building and the livestock barn. The fair opened to the public from 2 until 5, with a candy guessing contest and raffle tickets. Dinner was served from 5 to 6, and at 7 p.m. the market animal sale was held in the livestock barn.

August 17 ran from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Fairgoers voted for their favorite open class entries until 3. Authentic Mexican food was served for lunch from 11:30 to 3:30, and from noon until 8 Idaho Fun Jumps ran a slide, an obstacle course and a jump house outside. Team branding began at 1 p.m. at the Thomas-Harn Rodeo Arena. A mechanical bull opened for riders at 4. At 6 the Mud Lake Telephone Cooperative served dinner, while exhibitors collected their entries between 4 and 5. Questions went to Laurie Small at the 4-H office.

Settlers of the silver sage

The 2019 fair also continued the celebration of Clark County’s centennial. On August 17 the county historian Bonnie Stoddard sat in the Dubois Community Center with her book of Clark County history, and collector coins were offered for sale.

The county she wrote about had passed through several others before it became itself. A history published in 1992 by the Clark County Historical Society and the Clark County Centennial Committee traces the ground from Oneida County in 1864 to Bingham County in 1885 and Fremont County in 1904, and then to Clark County in 1919, with Dubois as its seat. That book, Settlers of the Silver Sage, was edited by Stoddard, who chaired its executive committee. It gathers more than 1,500 individual and family histories and more than 1,300 photographs. Eileen English Bennett, a charter member and secretary of the Clark County Fair Board, served on its committee and drew the Historical Society logo printed on the cover. Among the songs in its front pages is one by Phyl Lund and Tom Nick, used in the Clark County Centennial Video: “We’ve fought our droughts and blizzards / Like the one in eighty-nine; / We carried on with living / In Clark County, we’ll survive...”