Lake County Fair

Five days on North 4th Street

The ranch rodeo opens the weekend. At 11 in the morning on the Thursday of the 2026 Lake County Fair & Round-Up, September 3, juniors went into the arena at the Lake County Fairgrounds, 1900 North 4th Street in Lakeview, for calf branding with a calcutta. The Ladies Ranch Rodeo followed at 1:00 p.m., with mixed branding after it. That evening at 6:00 the crowd moved downtown for the kick-off, where The Real Housewives of St. John played, featuring Travis Riddle. The county and the Round-Up both give the 2026 dates as September 3 through 7. The Oregon Fairs Association’s register listed the Lake County Fair for August 27–31.

Lake County produces the fair and keeps the grounds open year round for weddings, parties, and a spring gun and trade show. The fairgrounds office, under manager Briana Perez, describes itself as “a one person office.” Its RV park needs reservations over Labor Day weekend. The county’s page reported the park fully booked, with dry camping left in the west parking area.

Friday’s open ranch rodeo began at 10:00 a.m. with team branding, team doctoring, team roping, tie-down roping, trailer loading, steer stopping, and a calf branding rope-off. Breakaway roping started at 1:00 p.m. in the Neil Flynn Arena. At 8:00 that night came the ranch rodeo winners, the calcutta on saddle bronc and mutton bustin’, and the Steve Michael Spurs Auction. Live music followed in the Re-Ride Room, the hospitality room where three performances and a bar fill the hours between events.

On Saturday, team roping produced by ACTRA ran in the Neil Flynn Arena from 9:30 a.m., and a cornhole tournament started behind the grandstands at the same hour. Melrose Vineyards poured a wine tasting in the Re-Ride Room from 2:00 p.m. until 4, by the Round-Up’s own post that afternoon. At 7:00 p.m. Jo Dee Messina took the grandstand stage with John Morgan as special guest, and the music carried on in the Re-Ride Room afterward.

Slack, mutton bustin’, and the derby

Sunday began at 8:00 a.m. with PRCA slack in the arena, then local team roping slack. At 12:30 the kids rode calves and steers. The Round-Up told parents to be “ready to nod your head at 12:30pm” and to tell Mesa if a child could not come, because she had several on the wait list. Mutton bustin’ runs during the rodeo itself, and the Round-Up supplies helmets and vests.

The Grand Entry and the 107th Lake County Round-Up, a PRCA Columbia River Circuit rodeo, came at 1:30 p.m. on both Sunday and Monday. Garrison Allen announced and Clark Maxwell served as arena director. After the first day the Round-Up reported its “hometown cowboy,” Kaden Greenfield, leading the steer wrestling with a 3.7 from the morning slack. Lane Vaughan topped the bull riding after the first performance with an 85.5 on Four Star Rodeo’s Dynamite. The bull riding went in the end to an 87-point ride on Four Star’s Chuck’s Boy. The Round-Up named the rider Mason Spain, and Schneider Photography’s caption named him Wayne Spain. Visiting royalty that weekend included Miss Rodeo Oregon.

On Sunday at 7:00 p.m. the Lake County Desert Cruisers put on the Destruction Derby for $12,000 in total payouts, with heat winners, a Powder Puff class, and the M.A.D Dog Trophy. The Round-Up’s definition of the event is “a competition in which vehicles are driven into each other until only one is left running.” In 2025 Adam Gonzalez won the main event, Caleb Hollenbeck took the Mad Dog, and Wade Wessell won both the youth heat and the Mad Pup.

Monday opens with the parade through downtown Lakeview at 10:00 a.m. The final rodeo performance follows in the afternoon, and in 2026 veterans were admitted free. The Lake County Examiner’s account of 2025 says a greased pig contest opens the Monday rodeo and bull riding is always the last event.

The same account fills in the fair around the arena. The 2025 theme was “Blue Jeans and Country Dreams,” and the grounds held a carnival. FFA and 4-H members auctioned animals they had raised for months. Cleve Brock, raised in Lakeview, came home to play the Re-Ride Room. On the Saturday night Josh Turner stopped his set to wish a happy birthday to Judy Graham, who was turning 80. She had been superintendent of Lake County School District #7 and principal of Lakeview High School for many years. The packed grandstand stood and sang to her. Turner’s set ended at 9:21 p.m., earlier than many expected, and “there was a long pause before the fans realized it was over and started to leave.”

That fall Matt Englehart was chosen president of the Round-Up. Bailey Harrington was crowned 2026 queen and Haley Neider 2026 princess. Neider told the Examiner: “Rodeo has been a part of my life since the Lake County Jr. Rodeo. Rodeo continues to challenge me and shape my character and work ethic.”

Plaques on the west side of the grounds

Every queen and princess eventually goes up on a wall. The Lake County Round-up Past Presidents Ed Garrett Museum stands on the west side of the fairgrounds. Each year’s president and court are remembered there with plaques and information, and the displays include hats, chaps, saddles, and Round-Up queens’ outfits. The museum charges no admission. Volunteers staff it during the Round-Up and fair, and the rest of the year it opens by appointment.

The idea came up at a monthly Round-Up Association meeting. Members noted that the group had no regular meeting place and that photographs of the rodeo were probably being thrown away because there was nowhere to hang them. The past presidents took on the project. The committee was Marvin “Tuffy” Butler, Don Hotchkiss, Bill Messner, George Iremonger, and John Flynn.

Ed Garrett had been president of the 1964 Round-Up and Grand Marshal in 1991, and he died on October 3 of that year. His family started a memorial fund without yet knowing what it would pay for. Then they heard about the museum. The Garrett fund and family gave $5,000, matching a gift from the past presidents. Truman Collins gave another $5,000, and an Oregon Trails matching grant added $4,000. The building was paid for before it opened in the spring of 1993, dedicated alongside the Oregon Trails kick-off.

Collecting the photographs of the queens and princesses was the hardest part and took about two years. The museum’s own page says the collection has since outgrown the walls, and an addition has been planned but not funded.

Seven weeks in 1920

The Round-Up has another town’s rodeo to thank for its start. On July 3, 4, and 5, 1920, Bly, a Klamath County town of fewer than 100 people by the Round-Up’s account, staged a rodeo that drew upwards of 3,000. On July 9 the Lake County Chamber of Commerce met at the courthouse under its president, Dr. E. H. Smith. Smith appointed Dan Brennan, W.V. Miller, and F.P. Light to study holding a round-up in Lakeview.

Six days later Burt K. Snyder, the chamber’s secretary, presided over a second meeting. The committee brought a list of 52 firms and individuals. The Round-Up’s history page says each was willing to give up to $100, and its home page says each gave $100. The chamber adjourned so the 52 signers could take over the meeting. They adopted articles of incorporation and bylaws and elected S.P. Dicks president, W.V. Miller vice-president, and Dan Brennan secretary-treasurer. W.Z. Moss, A.J. Ousley, O.C. Gibbs, and Fred Reynolds became directors. The Lakeview Round-Up was set for September 4, 5, and 6, Labor Day weekend.

Within a week the organizers had leased ground west of Lakeview and begun clearing sagebrush. Corral posts were on the ground, over $7,000 had been raised against a $10,000 goal, and plans were drawn for a grandstand 200 feet long. The Lake County Examiner of August 5, 1920, reported that R.E. Taylor had the contract to build it. The leased land was being cleared and leveled for an arena, a race track, the grandstand, and a baseball park, and Dicks had ten committees at work. By August 12 the program was set: baseball games and “aeroplane stunting” along with riding, roping, and racing. Admission to the grounds for all three afternoons cost $3, a grandstand seat $1.50 more, and children paid half.

The Examiner of September 2 reported everything ready. A new outdoor dance floor, 100 feet by 100, stood just north of the Masonic Hall, the building that now houses Howards Drug. A jazz band from Reno was booked for all three nights. Each afternoon would start at 1 p.m. with a parade led by “the king and queen, Mr. and Mrs. S.P. Dicks.” On September 9 the paper reported average daily attendance of over 4,000. Travel Southern Oregon notes that Lake County’s population at the time was about 4,000.

The preparations had cost so much that the backers were unlikely to see their $100 back. The Round-Up’s history says that a few years later all of them waived their claims so the county could buy the grounds and facilities. The event later took the name Lake County Round-Up.

Boss Richardson and the long run

Pediment Publishing’s centennial book calls the first effort “seven harried weeks” of ranchers and business owners. Three weeks after that first show, Thelma Tucker married Boss Richardson, called the King of the Lakeview Round-Up. He was top cowboy at four of the first five. By August 25, 1927, the Examiner was reporting veterans Bill Raymond and Pat McCartie in town, warning there “won’t be enough horses to go around.” It also noted that Jesse Stahl had arrived and was wrangling horses for some outfit while he waited for the show. In 1930 the same paper wrote, “The cowboys get a square deal at Lakeview.” The book counts the run through depression, drought, and wars, with the 100th consecutive rodeo on Labor Day weekend of 2019.

For that centennial, queens and courts from the past century were invited back. Todd Muller, co-president that year, said they received a 100th-year pin-brooch, and horse-drawn wagons carried in the parade the members who chose not to ride horseback. In 2020 the pandemic threatened what the Round-Up counts as its 101st show. Its board of directors held the rodeo anyway, and the Round-Up has since called itself the oldest consecutive rodeo in Oregon. In the centennial year Jessica Bogardus, executive director of the Lake County Chamber of Commerce, said of it: “The Round-Up has never had a paid hand.”