Eureka County Fair

The Eureka County Fairgrounds lie just west of Eureka on U.S. Highway 50. The grounds hold a large dirt arena and a small one, a covered pavilion, an exhibit hall and a cook shack. For one weekend in August the county fair and rodeo fills them. Entry was free in 2025, when the Eureka Sentinel counted hundreds of fairgoers over the four days from August 7 to 10.

The Eureka County Fair Board, chaired in 2026 by Darla Baumann, runs the fair. The county’s schedule set the 2026 fair for August 4 through 9, with the exhibit hall taking entries on the first two days. A July report in the Sentinel gave the dates as August 6 to 9. The county marked every time on its program as approximate.

Branding pens and a mud court

Thursday belonged to 4-H, with a livestock show at 9:00 in the morning and a Skill-A-Thon at 3:00. On Friday the Cook Shack opened at 8:00. At 9:45 the Eureka High School Rodeo Club gave the flag presentation and national anthem, as it did again on Saturday. Youth team branding began at 10:00 in both arenas. At noon young riders on stick horses ran the gymkhana barrel pattern, and the mounted gymkhana followed from 1:00 to 5:00. The high school volleyball team held farm animal bingo at 3:00. Youth rough stock went into the large arena at 5:00, and a cornhole tournament filled the pavilion at 6:00. A free Kids Zone ran both days.

Saturday opened with mud volleyball at 9:00 and the annual Scrabble tournament in the exhibit hall at 9:30. Open team branding worked the large arena from 10:00 until a one o’clock lunch break, which also held the 4-H sale. A drawpot round of branding followed at 2:00. Horseshoes started at 1:00, the volleyball team’s watermelon eating contest at 3:00, and goat roping ran from 4:00 to 6:00. The rodeo went from 6:00 to 9:00 with broncs, mini bulls, bulls, steer stopping and chute dogging. Then the band Reckless Envy played a concert and dance in the pavilion.

The Sentinel’s 2025 results show who rides and brands. In youth rough stock the smallest children rode sheep, older ones calves and steers. Henzley Allen won the sheep riding, Reid Benson the calves and Jace Barto the steers. Youth branding split into ages 7 to 10 and 11 to 14, and the teams entered under names like “Flying Nevada #1,” “Secret Service” and “Lazy Reverse Spiked S.” The “Carico Girls” won the women’s branding. Their team was Kaylee Filippini, Lindy Norcutt, Brynn Lehman and Andrea Sestanovich, a name that also appears as the board’s vice chair. “Carrasco Horseshoeing” won the men’s division. After the rodeo, the paper wrote, “the crowd was welcomed to dance.”

Grand entries and a queen’s court

The program has shifted over the decades. In 2006 the fair ran August 11 to 13, and its Friday was Kid’s Day, with games, rides, animals, crafts, races and music. Barrel racing came a month earlier, on July 15. The 2007 fair, set for August 10 to 12, scheduled its horse show for Thursday night.

That year’s queen contest was held June 15, 2007. Six girls were judged on essay, appearance and personal interviews, and Erin Wilker came out on top. The board announced her win at the Eureka Gymkhana on June 23, and Elizabeth Damele and Tory Colby were crowned princesses. According to the Elko Daily Free Press, the court’s duties included “a year-long representation of the county and reigning over the fair, helping with arena events and awards.”

At the August 7 to 10 fair in 2008, Katie Damele was queen, and her court saluted the crowds during the grand entries. The fair drew a record number of branding teams that year, and a record number of riders for the old-fashioned saddle bronc event. Jake McKay won the bronc riding with an 80. Scott Raine of Raine’s Market presented his buckle, with the queen’s court beside him. Children dug for money and prizes in a giant pile of sand in a “minors mining dig” sponsored by Barrick Ruby Hill Mine. The Eureka Clog Stars performed, Biltoki catered a meal, and Bubbles the Clown, a mechanical bull and a hay contest filled out the weekend. The paper added that there were “as always, exhibitions in the home arts building.”

The Free Press ran the headline “Rodeo action added to Eureka County Fair” in July 2009. Heather Lacovara was queen in 2015, with Molly Zimmerman as junior queen. In 2016 the fair ran August 11 to 15, and about 60 teams entered the branding. That year Lynn Conley chaired the board with Darla Baumann as vice chair, and Dorothy Rowley sat on it. All three still served in 2026.

Rhonda Garaventa’s roping

The fair closes on Sunday morning with the Rhonda Garaventa Memorial ACTRA Team Roping, set for 10:00 in 2026. In 2025 it ran from 9:00 to 2:00.

Rhonda Marie Garaventa was born December 10, 1979, in Reno, to Gary and Melody Garaventa. She grew up in Eureka and graduated from Eureka County High School. She worked as a cosmetologist and later for Barrick Gold at Ruby Hill. Her obituary in Ropers Sports News says she loved camping, fishing, hunting, riding horses and roping. She took photographs at brandings and ropings.

The 2008 results list her on two placing branding teams. One was the first-place women’s team, “Tuscareka,” with Rosie Bliss, Andrea Mori and Renee Jackson. The other was the third-place coed team, “Rising Sun,” with Gary Garaventa, Chad Bliss and Rosie Bliss. She died of colon cancer on October 2, 2015, at 35. Her services were held at the Eureka County Fairgrounds on October 10.

Her obituary names her sister Rosie, Rosie’s husband Chad Bliss, and nieces and nephews including Hannah and Hadley Bliss. In the 2025 youth branding, “Team Bliss” with Hadley Bliss placed second. Hannah Bliss and Rosie Bliss branded on the third-place women’s team.

The old fairgrounds and a miner’s shout

The grounds serve the county the rest of the year as well. For the Bureau of Land Management’s 2024 wild horse gather in the Roberts Mountain Complex, the regular meeting place for public observers was the fairgrounds. From there the group drove out in caravan to the traps.

An earlier fairground lies 2 miles south of town in Windfall Canyon, below Prospect Peak. It is now the Perdiz Shooting Range. There Jerry White has kept a sporting-clays club going since 1992, with shooting stations built to simulate “incoming kamikaze chukar” and other game. On August 3, 2024, he became the first inductee into the Nevada State Sporting Clays Hall of Fame. The Eureka County Star wrote that his “mark you have made up on the old fairgrounds, now known as The Perdiz Shooting Range will be enjoyed for many years by many shooters.”

The town itself began in 1864, when prospectors from Austin, 70 miles west, found claims here. Residents complained that Austin was too far to go for county business, and in 1873 Eureka County was formed from parts of Lander, Elko and White Pine counties. Raine’s Market says the name comes from the ancient Greek for “I have found it.” The state’s historical marker tells it another way: “’Eureka!’ a miner is said to have exclaimed in September 1864 when he discovered rich ore here – and thus the town was named.”