Kuna Days

The band shell at Bernie Fisher Park, on the southwest corner of Main Street and Linder Road in Kuna, has power run to it and a walkway from the parking lot. Around it are a gazebo, swings, a climbing dome, picnic tables, and charcoal grills. On the first weekend of August the park is home to Kuna Days, the town’s annual celebration, hosted by the Kuna Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber’s program lists live music, food vendors, a parade, mullet contests, and a fireworks display.

KIVI television, which called the event the Kuna Days Tailgating Party, sent a reporter. He missed the mullet catwalk but caught the parade, which “seemed to have most of the businesses in town marching through.” The station described Kuna as a farming community and reported that people come from all over the Treasure Valley. It described a two-day celebration ending Saturday night with fireworks at 10 p.m., one of the largest displays of the summer in the valley, the reporter was told. The Chamber’s calendar lists the 2027 edition across three days, August 6 to 8.

“All of the businesses and everybody loves to get together,” Karri Keller of the Chamber told KIVI. “This has been over sixty years we have been doing this, it has just gotten bigger and bigger.”

Mud on the BMX track

The City of Kuna’s Parks and Recreation Department adds two events of its own every year. On the second day, from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., right after the parade, the city crew builds an obstacle course on the Kuna BMX Track at 351 W. 2nd Street for the Down ‘N Dirty Mud Run. Children run in heats by age: 0 to 5, 6 to 8, 9 to 11, and 12 and up. Parents may join in. The city calls it one of Mayor Stear’s favorite events and says he may run it himself. Entry is free, and to the question of whether the children will get muddy, the city’s answer is “Yes.” The parade closes most roads, so the city suggests walking to the track.

At the time of KIVI’s report the mud run had been held for seven years. “My kids look forward to this all year long and we make sure we are in town so they can at least come down and do the mud run,” Michelle Nielson of Kuna told the station. “The other stuff is fun too, but this is the highlight for them.”

The city’s second event is a cornhole tournament on the festival grounds, open to “Back Yard Amateur or Front Yard Master.” On Saturday, August 1, 2026, from 1:30 to 5 p.m., 32 teams of amateurs and pros played double elimination, with the top five places paid.

The 2026 mud run did not happen. On July 28, 2026, the city canceled it because of unhealthy air quality. On July 31, CBS2 reported that Kuna Days would go on as planned despite the smoke. The Chamber said the mud run was the only canceled event and that it would keep watching the air.

A chairman who could not let go

Kuna Days has an official committee, but the organization in charge has changed over the years. Mark Barnes made the point in a guide to the celebration published July 30, 2014, under a headline marking Kuna’s 150th birthday. A year earlier the Kuna Melba News had reported that Pat Jones, Kuna Days chairman for many years, wanted to hand the baton to someone else. In 2014 the Kuna Lions Club took over the reins. Jones, who had also been elected to the city council, was a Lions Club member. “It looks like he wasn’t able to hand off much this year,” Barnes wrote. By the guide’s count, 2014 was the 51st anniversary. Barnes added that other groups had always attached their own events to the weekend, and his guide listed all of them.

Pancakes, rubber ducks, and fire trucks

The 2014 celebration opened Friday, August 1, with vendors in the park at 4 p.m., music in the band shell, and a 21-and-over country concert with Sweet Briar, Carolina Morning, and The Lost Trailers. The Friday fireworks had moved to Saturday the year before, so the paper filled the gap with its second annual Family Movie Night. It showed Rio 2 on the Kuna Baseball Field at “Dark-30,” about 10:30 p.m.

Saturday began with a Boy Scout pancake breakfast on the park’s basketball court, which normally hosted the Kuna Farmer’s Market. On the Greenbelt the Lions held their third annual car show. Barnes reported that the previous year’s show had been one of the biggest in Idaho. Prizes went to Best Early and Late Mopar, Best Japanese Car, Best Pickup, and a dozen other classes, and the proceeds funded the club’s Sight and Hear Program. Kuna High School hung more than 150 quilts for its 15th annual quilt show.

Rubber ducks sold at Paul’s Market for $5. Hot dogs were handed out by the Swan Falls Bridge, and at 1 p.m. the ducks were loosed into Indian Creek. The first to reach the pipe on the west side of the bridge won. At the fire station on Linder Avenue and Boise Street, the Kuna Rural Fire District served its Old Tyme BBQ and held an auction at 6 p.m. for the fire training fund. The guide regretted that there would be no pie or taco eating contest.

The parade went down Main Street at 10 a.m. It was organized by the Chamber and, by the guide’s count, had been held for 51 years. It brought the Kuna marching band, floats, cars, and horses. The 2014 grand marshal, Boone Bartlome, had suffered a neck injury the previous fall in the Kuna–Bishop Kelley football game, and the community had raised money for his family. He rode in a horse-drawn carriage provided by Al and Phyllis Ellert.

Barnes called the end of the parade perhaps its biggest part: a giant water fight. In 2013 the crowd had turned hydrants on the fire trucks and firemen as they neared Bernie Fisher Park. “Warning! You will get wet if you do not leave the area,” the guide advised, and it told readers to bring squirt guns and water balloons and fire back at the Kuna Fire Trucks. Parade awards were given at the band shell at 2 p.m.

Fireworks went up at 10:15 p.m. “Undoubtedly THE BEST fireworks show in the Treasure Valley-bar none,” Barnes wrote. Local businesses and residents contributed, and Fireworks America, locally owned by Lloyd Stubbs, doubled the value of what was fired. The show included big fire bombs, which the guide noted are illegal in California. After the last of them, Cowgirls hosted the annual street dance in its parking lot, 21 and over. “Unlike historical street dances, however,” Barnes wrote, “you can’t bring your kids and then promptly forget about them to run amuck.”