Converse County Fair

At the Pee Wee Pet Show on July 15, 2026, Brody Ortega presented his guinea pig, Peaches, and the audience answered with “awwww.” The photographer Nate Pappas wrote that the sound came down “at all moments.” Cohen Wondra led a goat into the show circle. Keith Addleman talked about his cow, Nikki. Madelyn True smiled from the saddle of her horse. The pet show is the small end of the Converse County Fair, held each July at the Wyoming State Fairgrounds and Event Complex in Douglas. There the county’s 4-H and FFA members show, sell, and tend the animals they have raised.

The fair book and the fair board gave the 2026 dates as July 10 to 18. The county tourism board’s listing started the fair a day earlier, on July 9. The fair is run by the Converse County Fair Board, an all-volunteer body that serves at the pleasure of the county commissioners. In 2026 Stacey Etchemendy was chairman and Kelsey Stephens was fair manager. After the fair closed, the board posted about Stephens as “mom, aunt, wife and ‘bonus mom’ to so many kids in the barn,” and added, “Kelsey is the magic behind it all.” The 2026 fair ran under the motto “Built by Generations. Rooted in Tradition. Honoring 250 Years of American-Made.”

Barns and show rings

The fair book calls Converse County “a full fit fair.” Youth exhibitors are expected to wash, groom, and fit their own animals. A parent, sibling, club leader, or another member may help, but only as a teacher, and only with the exhibitor present. The book tells exhibitors directly: “Exhibitors do your own work. Accept only advice and support from others.” In 2026 Stacy Silzell washed her daughter Sydney’s cow while Sydney nursed a hand injury.

The week’s shows move through several rings. The Dog Show was held on Monday morning, one of a slate of pet shows, and McKenzie Lewis worked to wrangle her dog through it. The Poultry Show was held on July 16 in the Ford Pavilion. Judge Brian Coates examined each bird, and Sophie White and Shelby Emig held theirs aloft before presenting them. Riley White’s Partridge Cochin, Chunky, won Best in Show, and she carried it back to its cage.

The Swine Show was also held in the Ford Pavilion, with Brandt Downing judging. Market hogs are classed first by breed and then by weight. A Dark Cross must carry black pigment and black hair in the same place, as on a white hog with a black head. Talyah Baughman spent a quiet moment with her pig, Wilbur, before the show began. Clayton Helmey and Presley Larribas held the judge’s eye as they competed for a top prize.

Cattle were shown in two rings. On Thursday morning the Converse County Cow Belles show was held in the Open Show Beef Ring, where Adelaide Leffler held tight to her cow’s reins. The FFA Beef Show and the Saturday Market Beef Show used the Grass Show Ring. There Kyler Sorensen wrestled his cow, Kylie Smith made kissy noises at hers, and Kylie Gibbs, in Senior Beef Showmanship, handled an unruly animal.

Friday in the Ford Pavilion

The board called Friday, July 17, 2026, “one of the biggest days of Fair week.” The large-animal round robin began at 8 a.m. and the small-animal round robin at 10. Pre-sale awards followed at 3:30. Rylieann Adams was named grand champion of the intermediate showman round robin, with Mallory Forgey as reserve. Mallori Hill took reserve champion in swine ultrasound.

Graze & Gather was new in 2026. At 4 p.m. it offered complimentary appetizers and a chance to meet the exhibitors and hear about their projects. The Junior Market Livestock Sale began at 5. It ran for hours before a packed Ford Pavilion:

• Jhet Peterson showed his goat to the buyers.
• Caitilyn Williams showed a goat in what the gallery called her final performance.
• Hagen Briggs chased his pig across the ring.
• Corie Karst and Mike Hershley bid together on a pig.
• Jake Roberts called out a bid with an emphatic “YUP.”

The 4-H Member Showcase Sale ran beside the livestock sale as a silent auction. It offered woodworking, photography, sewing, artwork, baked goods, and themed gift baskets, and it closed as soon as the livestock sale ended. Afterward the board announced that the 2026 sale had broken the record. It named 1876 Resources top buyer and Earth Works Solutions top new buyer.

Broncs and sheep at the Ford Grandstands

The Ranch Rodeo closed the 2026 fair on Saturday, July 18, at the Ford Grandstands. Tickets were $10, and children ten and under got in free.

Mutton bustin’ started at 3 p.m. Wiley Himes and 21 other children tried to stay on their sheep as long as they could. Himes held on “for dear life” until the sheep put him on the ground. Cora Leffler fell soon after the chute opened.

The Ranch Rodeo Calcutta followed at 4, and the rodeo began right after it. Ranch teams worked the arena:

• In the scramble, a Benchmark Cattle roper caught a running steer by the feet, and the Super Loopers broke toward the steers.
• A Zimmerman Fencing team member stared down a steer as his teammates pushed it into a trailer to lock in their time.
• In the Rescue Race, the Legends Bar & Grill team sprinted against the Young Guns.

Mini Bull Riding ran through the whole performance. A bull sent Samuel Smith airborne. Bullfighter JT Brown rushed in to reach Cole Williams after a bull threw him. In the Senior Minis, Cason Squibb of Cheyenne battled his bull.

The Xtreme Broncs drew riders from well beyond the county. Darcy Radel of Australia ducked the last kicks from a horse named Heartbreaker. Riggin Chaz Smith of Iowa held on to Sweeter Than Hon, and Kade Bruno of Idaho fought to stay aboard Day Drinker. Rebel Yell leapt high trying to throw Bryett Larsen of Utah.

A wolf race at Manville

The earliest Converse County Fair in the record was not held in Douglas. It was held at Manville, now a town of 94 people nine miles west of Lusk, at the junction of Highways 20 and 270.

Manville’s founding runs through a cattle company. H. S. Manville came from Milwaukee to the Wyoming Territory in 1879 and ranched west of the Hat Creek stage station. In 1880 he became manager of the new Converse Cattle Company and hired Addison A. Spaugh as ranch foreman. Spaugh had come to the territory at seventeen. When the railroad arrived in 1886, Spaugh was asked to name the new town, and he named it for Manville, his friend and business associate. That same year his O.W. Spread shipped some of the first cattle by rail from the new town.

Manville first lay in Laramie County. In 1888 the county was divided and the town fell within the new Converse County. The meetings that settled the county seat were held in Neadard’s store in Manville, and Spaugh was among those attending. On May 18 Douglas received the most votes and became the county seat.

In October 1891 the Converse County Fair came to Manville, with Spaugh as secretary of the fair association. Helen Viers’s history of the town says he made all the arrangements. Tents were furnished free to everyone who attended. Liberal premiums were paid on stock, farm products, fruit, vegetables, and flowers. The best two loaves of bread won $2.

An account in the Lusk Herald of July 9, 1986, says “the race track was a daisy,” with races of every kind. The feature was a wolf race. A wolf was turned loose with a pack of hounds stationed nearby. According to the Herald, the wolf stood off the hounds and killed one of them. Viers says only that the race “ended disastrously for the dogs.”

The fair returned to Manville in 1898, with more racing and fewer premiums. The town held a Fourth of July celebration the same year. The Herald says Manville ordered $45 worth of fireworks, and Viers puts the cost at more than fifty dollars. Another secretary of the fair association, J. H. Foster, was a Manville resident. He held the post for six years and also served as the U.S. census enumerator for the Manville district.

In 1913 the county was divided again, and Manville became part of Niobrara County, with its seat at Lusk. That September Lusk held the first Niobrara County Fair, and A. A. Spaugh sat on its agriculture committee. When he died in 1943, he was buried in the Manville cemetery.