De Baca County Fair

The De Baca County Fair keeps its grounds at 3933 Billy the Kid Drive in Fort Sumner. The grounds hold a building with a kitchen and bathrooms, a pavilion, a rodeo arena that is watered and worked before events, and rows of livestock stalls, some covered and some uncovered. A few electrical hookups go to vendors, and there are no camping hookups on the grounds. The 2026 fair ran July 30 through August 1.

In early July 2026 the fair board posted a row of emoji to its Facebook page: cow, pig, sheep, goat, rabbit, chicken, cookie, cake, tomato, cucumber, a spool of thread, a framed picture, a knot of rope, yarn, a dress. Above them was the line “County Fair is right around the corner!” The market animals go in the stalls. Youth indoor projects are shown in the building alongside the livestock, together with open entries that anyone may bring. “Do you craft, bake, draw, garden or any other hobbies??” the board asked later that month. “Best of Show is up for grabs!”

The fair is run by the De Baca County Fair Board, a nonprofit. Its 2025 roster listed Tyrel Layton as president, Delane Fech as vice president, Kyra Monzingo as treasurer, Shantell Moyers as secretary, and Justin Boyd and Wes Wall as members. The board holds its annual elections in January at the De Baca County Extension Office. Between fairs it also turns out for neighbors, with posts calling people to a Saturday “to support the Moyer Family” in November 2025 and to “Bags for Gerald” in March 2026: “Even if you don’t play- come grab a bite to eat and show your support!”

Saturday night in the sale ring

The fair’s last evening belongs to the Junior Livestock Sale, in which 4-H and FFA members sell the market animals they have raised. The 2026 sale began at 6:30 PM on Saturday, August 1. It was preceded at 5:00 PM by a Buyers Appreciation Dinner for donors, with the invitation “Come and see the projects that these 4-H and FFA members have worked hard to complete this year!” Businesses that give send their flyers and banners ahead, and the board hangs them throughout the fairgrounds.

The board’s stated job is to raise money for the exhibitors. It does so through buyer groups put together with local businesses, through add-ons pledged to particular exhibitors, and through the Catch-A-Calf program. Gifts may also go to animals not in the sale or to indoor projects. According to the board, the money “largely” goes toward the exhibitors’ college funds and toward the next year’s projects.

Bronc riding and team branding

The arena serves other events through the year. High school rodeos rent the stalls. On June 14 and 15, 2024, the grounds held the Fort Sumner Ranch Rodeo, which Singleton Ranches of Lamy and Elida won with 100 points over two days. The win earned a berth in the Working Ranch Cowboys Association World Finals. The team was two regulars short: Tanner Hart was on crutches and Gregg Gudgell had his arm in a shoulder sling. Singleton still won both the bronc riding and the team branding, and survived what the De Baca County News called its “one bad event.”

Six figures in 2022

The sale on August 13, 2022, set a record for the third straight year. The De Baca County News credited “a combination of renewed interest and new donors.” Twenty-five lots passed through the ring, two more than in 2021 and five more than in 2020. The sale itself brought $93,000, an average of $3,720 a lot, against $2,664 the year before. By August 15 the add-ons had reached $26,305, and the preliminary total stood at $119,305. That was the first time in the sale’s history it had passed six figures, and well beyond the 2021 record of $81,074. Organizers expected more add-ons to trickle in. With that money the board raised every junior livestock entry to at least $3,600 a head.

The top animal was Bean Wall’s Grand Champion Market Steer, bought for $6,400 by Steve Reeves of R&S Industries in Clovis. Next came Brooke Layton’s crossbred swine, sold for $5,500 to Jill Layton, Jason Davis, attorney Dan Lindsey and McCollum Cattle.

Rabbits and dairy, 1973

The fair appears in the Clovis News-Journal of July 29, 1973. The archive’s machine-read text is badly garbled, and its wording needs checking against the page image. As that text reads, the De Baca County fair directors met in special session to settle final plans for publishing the premium catalog. They moved the deadline for entering every area of the fair except the flower show. All exhibits in the fair building except the flowers were to be judged first and then opened to the public all day Saturday. The new departments added for that year were Junior rabbits and Dairy. The directors also planned special efforts to bring organization and commercial exhibits into the fair building and to have food concessions on the grounds. Catalogs were to be picked up at the county extension agent’s office in the courthouse in Fort Sumner.

Field Irwin was one of those who served on the board in later decades. He was born in Jordan, Montana, in 1953 and attended high school in Fort Sumner. He worked for several years on the Wertheim Rafter X Ranch between Fort Sumner and Santa Rosa and at sale barns. In 1983 he bought the A-1 Business Service in town and did taxes and bookkeeping there until 2006. He also sat on the Chamber of Commerce and Hospital boards, and he crocheted, quilted and made jewelry. He died on April 2, 2012, and his family listed building fence among his hobbies.