Lincoln County Nevada Fair and Rodeo

At 6:45 on a rodeo night at the Lincoln County Recreational Park and Fair Grounds, on State Route 319 at Panaca, the grand entry comes into the arena. At the 58th annual Lincoln County Fair & Rodeo, which closed Saturday, August 8, 2026, show choir seniors from Lincoln County High School helped open each night during the royalty introduction. Michael Heath sang the National Anthem on Friday and Maggie Gloeckner on Saturday, and the rodeo royalty carried the flags on horseback while the anthem played. Chad Steele and Chassy Scott announced. Robin Simmers handled the books and entries, Kylea Lytle and Robin Bradfield served as timers, and Jim Cole worked the barrier.

The Lincoln County Record reported that the 2026 rodeo brought more bronc riders into the arena than before and featured what the paper called the fair’s first bareback rider. A 2019 notice from the fair committee had already credited the late Kenny Lee with wrangling mustangs “for the bareback riding.” Breakaway roping drew an enthusiastic response from the crowd. Bill Clark of Clark Rodeo Ranches LLC brings the rough stock, Steele Productions the roping cattle, and Chad Casperson the mini bulls.

Two arenas and a week in August

The rodeo program, as the Record described it in 2025, runs to bull riding, saddle bronc, bareback, team roping, calf roping and steer wrestling. Barrel racing, mutton busting, mini bulls and what the paper called “the ever-rowdy wild cow milking” fill out the card. The county tourism authority adds the Cash on the Bull contest under the arena lights. The sources describe the rodeo’s standing differently. The tourism authority calls the nightly rodeo sanctioned by the Northwest Professional Rodeo Association and says it draws cowboys and cowgirls from throughout the Pacific Northwest. The Record’s 2025 preview calls it the Lincoln County Amateur Rodeo.

The fair runs in the first part of August, and the 2026 schedule filled most of a week around its four main days, August 5 through 8. It began Monday morning with a dog show of showmanship, obedience, agility and, if time allowed, rally. On Tuesday 4-H entries came into the Exhibit Hall. On Wednesday royalty contestants sat for interviews and then rode a horsemanship competition in the West Arena, and at six that evening Nevada’s Best Cowdog Trial ran in the East Arena.

Thursday starts early. Ranch rodeo sign-ups open at 7:00 a.m., and a youth and adult ranch rodeo goes at 7:30. The 9th annual Don Brackenbury Memorial Ranch Horse Challenge begins at 8:00, and the ranch rodeo proper follows at 9:00. The 5th annual Hank Brackenbury Memorial Slick Horn Muley Roping comes right after the ranch rodeo. That evening barrel racers make time-only runs and then the jackpot race in the East Arena, while a junior livestock clinic runs in the West Arena.

On Friday the gymkhana rides at eight in the West Arena and jackpot team roping follows in the East. At 4:30 comes mutton bustin’, for riders ten and under with a 60-pound weight limit. The top ten qualify for the night rodeo at seven. At five the FFA and the Lincoln County Farm Bureau put on a community dinner outside the Exhibit Hall, and at 6:30 the new royalty are crowned. On Saturday the junior rodeo fills both arenas from eight in the morning. The pee wee rodeo starts at two at the north end of the West Arena, followed by another round of mutton bustin’, another community dinner, and the second night rodeo.

In 2026 the pee wee riders ran mini barrel racing, pole bending, flag racing and dummy roping. Reata earned the title of Mini Cowgirl and Layton was named Mini Cowboy for the highest overall placements, and each went home with a belt buckle.

Chickens in the exhibit hall

Cindy Higbee organized the Exhibit Hall in 2026. She said the building filled with entries from 4-H members and residents across the county, from children of three or four to senior citizens. “It’s incredible how much local talent we had to share,” Higbee said. The hall shows fine arts, photography, fiber arts, handmade crafts, baked goods and 4-H projects. In 2018 it also showed fruits and vegetables and an archaeological exhibit of the desert habitat for children. In 2026 two 4-H members brought their prize chickens into the hall. There was no formal showmanship, but the young owners introduced visitors to the birds and talked about the work of raising them.

Outside, about 18 sheep and six pigs were shown in 2026. Cindy Shakespeare traveled from Loganville to give a livestock clinic for 4-H and FFA youth. Members of the Victory Life Church Lifeline youth group and the LCHS Drama Club collected entry fees Thursday through Saturday.

The hall has not always been full. In 2015 the fair board reported that exhibit participation had declined over the years. In 2017 the chairwoman thought competing events had kept exhibits down. In 2016 the fair’s chair, Jule Wadsworth, explained why the Zukapoldt, a zucchini slingshot, had not been held the year before: the zucchini had not come on in time.

From the panacker ledge to a renewed fair

The town takes its name from rock. According to the county history, a Paiute man in Meadow Valley in 1863 showed the Mormon missionary William Hamblin some rocks he called “panagari” or “panacker.” The ledge proved to carry silver. In May 1864 Francis Lee and six other families moved from Santa Clara, Utah, and established an agricultural settlement they called Panaca. Their farms and dairies sold produce to the prospectors passing through. A mill near the town that processed ore from the ledge became known as Bullionville.

The Record marked 2018 as the 50th anniversary of the Lincoln County rodeo. The fair as it runs today grew from a renewal begun around 2005. Jule Durfee Wadsworth and her husband, Matt, took the idea to the Lincoln County Farm Bureau, which agreed to lead the effort, and she later chaired the Fair Board for years. The Record’s own count shows two strands. It called the 2016 event the “eighth annual Lincoln County Fair,” and it called the 2019 event the 51st annual fair and rodeo.

By Wadsworth’s account, 2015 was the most successful year the fair had had. Cow dog trials and jackpot barrel racing were added that year. Bleachers were full for the Friday and Saturday rodeos, where Chad Steele took over the announcing from Stuart Twitchell, who had held the job for seven years. The FFA and Cattlemen’s dinners fed crowds until the food ran out. That year’s Adventure Relay drew nine teams and two single cyclists over a 30-mile course from Eagle Valley past Echo Dam, through Condor Canyon, past Bullionville and Cathedral Gorge, and into the fairgrounds. A storm sent runners and cyclists through extra mud and water in Condor Canyon. For 2016 Wadsworth announced an ATV and motorcycle rodeo and a change to the sheep riding: “This year Mutton Busting will be its own event. Before the rodeo on Friday and Saturday night we will have Mutton Busting, and we will take the top 10 to compete in the rodeo for the buckle.” The band Most Wanted came from Cedar City to play Thursday through Saturday nights.

Attendance fell in 2017. Wadsworth blamed the Silver State Trailblazers’ AMA National Hare N’ Hound motorcycle race in Caliente and the last weekend before school. In a comment beneath the Record’s story, SSTB president Zack Livreri disagreed. He wrote that the AMA had forced the club to an earlier date and that it had moved its event out of Panaca so as not to interfere with the fair. The Riata Ranch Cowboy girls, a trick-riding team from California, made their first appearance that year. One fair member had seen them perform at another rodeo, and the fair invited them. The riders helped with the mutton busting and pee wee rodeo and signed autographs. Sarah Thompson of the team said they enjoyed Panaca and the hospitality of its people. “It was a great fair, and if you didn’t come, you missed it,” Wadsworth said.

In 2018 the fair had a new board, and co-manager Kathy Cook reported record crowds Thursday through Saturday nights. Rain and wind hit the Saturday rodeo. “Everybody hung on and stayed right there,” Cook said. “That’s the western way of life.” The cowboy clown Randee Munns of Utah was the featured entertainment. The 4-H trap shoot behind the exhibit hall, on ground Lee Decker had cleared in advance, was the best attended in the event’s recent history. Cook said the fair made almost three times its usual amount and credited Connie Simkins, Christy Blood and Haley Gloeckner as “the ones that really spurred things along.”

Names on the program

The fair carries its dead on its schedule. The 2019 fair honored Kenneth “Kenny” D. Lee, 1929–2019. The committee wrote that for many years he had provided bulls for bull riding, wrangled mustangs for the bareback riding, and provided tractors for the arena. The same year it honored the rodeo announcer Chad Nicholson and William Alvin “Al” Cox. The fair’s website lists the 2nd annual Don Brackenbury Memorial Ranch Horse Challenge at 8:00 a.m. on August 8, 2019.

The 2022 fair, the 54th of its kind in the county, ran under the theme “Stars, Stripes and Rodeo Nights!” It was held in memory of Henry Ray “Hank” Brackenbury, who died that year after an intense battle with cancer. By all accounts, the Record wrote, he had worked on ranches and farms his entire life. The week before that fair, volunteers hung the plywood that would carry the sponsors’ signs. County Commissioner Jarden Brackenbury, Hank’s son, was among them, with Jamie Cole, Chanille Chouquer, Cindy Higbee, Kristal Romans, Grant Perkins and Jamie Perkins.

Jule Durfee Wadsworth died February 18, 2026. Both nights of that August’s rodeo were dedicated to her memory. She was remembered for greeting fairgoers, helping feed the crowds, stepping in wherever she was needed, and her work with mutton bustin’. She had served 23 years as secretary-treasurer of the Lincoln County Farm Bureau, led 4-H, sat on the 4-H Council and the Lincoln County Conservation District, and coached FFA students for soils, range and plant identification competitions. Families came out that weekend to watch the little ones climb aboard the sheep, and the Record reported that some of the biggest cheers of the weekend went to them.