Madison County Fair

On the afternoon of August 12, 2026, the opening day of the Madison County Fair, local cowboys and cowgirls rode into the Grandstand Arena at the Rexburg fairgrounds for the Rexburg Ranch Rodeo. The rodeo was a WSRRA qualifier, and its events came from ranch work: branding, doctoring, team roping, and load and tie. Earlier that day the grounds had been given over to children. The fair called it Kids Day. It had a scavenger hunt, bounce houses, vendor booths run by young vendors, and the return of the Ping Pong Drop, which the fair’s schedule described as “long-awaited.”

The drop has a known form. In 2022 it opened the fair at 2 p.m. in the grandstand arena. Children up to six years old went first and older youth followed. A thousand ping-pong balls were dropped, each printed with a number matching a prize. Madison Health put $3,500 toward the prizes. Patty Olsen, who helped oversee that fair, listed them: “an above-ground swimming pool, bikes, kayaks and a record player.”

The grounds on West Second North

The fairgrounds stand at 460 West Second North. During the fair, the buildings and barns are open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., the grandstand events run later, and the vendor booths stay open until 10 p.m. The 2021 schedule names the working parts of the place. Clothing judging and the cat show were held in the Veteran’s Building. Quilts and canning went to the Home Arts Building. Hogs were kept in the Pig Barn, and the market swine show was held in the Indoor Arena. In 2024 Fair Board chairman Chris Johnson gave the indoor arena as “150 by 300” and counted about 50 horse stalls and no RV spots.

The 4-H program supplies much of what fills the barns. Grade-school members spend months registering their animals and taking them through weigh-ins before they show and auction them at the fair. The open classes take quilting, knitting, baking, canning, and antiques. “I’ve lived here for 20 years, and to see what people work on throughout the year — all these kids raise their animals, (work) on their quilts, and canning — it’s amazing,” Olsen said in 2022. She called the fair “the coolest country tradition that I’ve ever seen.” That year more than 30 food vendors came. “You can get breakfast, lunch or dinner or get all three every day,” she said.

For 2026 the fair charged no admission on any day, to mark America’s 250th birthday. In 2021 the gate had cost $1, cash only, and a can of food was accepted in its place on the Thursday. In 2023 entry was $2, payable by cash, card, or Venmo.

Hypnotists, mullets, and the Figure 8

The free stage changes from year to year. On the second day of the 2026 fair it carried the hypnotist Corrie J, the comedy magician John Cassidy, and the acrobats called the Silver Starlets. Corrie J returned for a late show at 9 p.m. At 5 p.m. that day the young riders of the IJRA Top 10 Finals competed in the Grandstand Arena, with no admission charged. Earlier fairs had their own acts. In 2021 the animal expert Corbin Maxey appeared on the stage several times a day, and the Utah Horse Pullers worked in the grandstands. In 2022 Olsen described the act Dangerous Feats of Comedy as “a group of brothers who like to eat fire and juggle chainsaws.”

On Friday, August 14, the fifth annual Best Mullet contest was held at 6 p.m. on the MadisonHealth Stage. The contest was new in 2022. That year, Olsen said, three judges chose “the best, the thickest and the longest mullet.” The winner took home $200 in cash, a $50 Valleywide Cooperative gift card, and a pool for a truck bed. “We pull out the big guns for the big hair,” the fair’s officials wrote on their webpage. Other contests have run alongside it. The 2022 hot dog eating contest allowed ten minutes and set its own rule: contestants “are allowed water to aid with eating, dipping, or drenching.” The 2023 fair added pie eating and husband calling.

At 7 p.m. that Friday, Mad Marv’s Figure 8 Races started in the Grandstand Arena. Daredevil drivers raced the track and each other. Tickets were $10, cash only, sold at the gate for everyone four and older.

Saturday, August 15, closed the fair. The Made in Idaho Market ran from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. It grew from the 2022 Makers Day, when Olsen counted more than 50 jewelry makers, knife makers, welders, and other makers, “all from southeast Idaho.” At 7 p.m. the WHR Arenacross Nationals Tour held its finale. Riders competed in classes from 50 Open up through Pro A Open, plus a new Pit Bike 110 class. The 2021 arenacross had brought in the professional freestyle motocross rider Jeremy “Twitch” Stemberg.

A fair board appointed by the county commissioners runs all of this. Its 2026/2027 members are Chris Johnson as chairman, Natalie Munns, Mike Mortensen, Bret Bagley, Brandon Hanna, Russ Klingler, and Amber Genta. In 2023 Bagley was also a BYU-Idaho student studying political science. According to the fairgrounds, volunteers run the entire behind-the-scenes work of both the fair and the Whoopee Days Rodeo. The rodeo and the Rexburg Farmer’s Market use the same grounds for the rest of the year.

A half-mile track and a balloonist

The Fremont Fair Association bought an almost 30-acre parcel in August 1911. The ground had a half-mile horse race track, and the total investment came to $15,000. The first fair was held September 19–21, 1911. “The first fair was put in in 1911 and it has grown ever since,” county administrative assistant Shannon Lewis said in 2021, the fair’s 110th year.

Rexburg then lay in Fremont County. The Idaho Legislature passed an act creating Madison County on February 18, 1913, and the voters of Fremont County approved it on November 7 by 1,760 votes to 793. In Rexburg, 793 votes were cast and seven opposed it. The governor proclaimed the county the next day. Rexburg held a barbecue of two steers, six pigs, six lambs, and two thousand loaves of bread. The fairgrounds passed to the new county.

The town history Rexburg, Idaho: The First One Hundred Years, 1883–1983 records how early fairs tried new attractions. In August 1913 the fair introduced bulldogging and also ran wild-horse races and Roman-chariot races. For 1914 the committee wanted an airplane. The Moisant International Aviation Company declined to bring one because its aviator feared the altitude, so a balloonist performed on the fair’s second and third days instead. The committee members of those years included J. P. Bowers, James R. Wright, John L. Ballif, Jr., John X. Anderson, R. S. Hunt, W. C. Holley, and Arthur Porter, Jr. They got their airplane later. On a September 24, pilot J. Floyd Smith flew it over Rexburg. On September 30 and October 1 the airplane, repaired, raced a car driven by Emmett Poole and beat it.

Building on the grounds continued slowly. New corrals went up in June 1945, and the grandstand was repaired the same month. In October 1945 a 20-stall barn was built for local people who needed a place to board their horses.

After the Teton Dam, and eighty acres west of Highway 20

The Teton Dam flood of June 5, 1976, led to Madison County being declared a national disaster area. County Commission chairman Todd Smith said the fairgrounds were “rebuilt after the flood in 1976/1977.” The town history records that the first fair after the flood was held in the fall of 1978 in the newly constructed facilities and calls it a great success. “At the time, we were a community of about 10,000 people,” Smith said in 2024. “Now we are bordering close to 60,000.”

Johnson said the grounds were “bursting at the seams.” On nights with grandstand events there was not enough parking, and horse trailers and cars spilled onto city streets. “Neighbors are not happy,” he said. In 2024, after ten years of looking, the county bought about 80 acres from the Bowen family. The land lies on part of South 3300 West, west of U.S. Highway 20, near the gravel pit and close to the Thornton exit. A public records request showed the price was over $3.8 million, paid from federal ARPA funds the county had received during COVID-19. Smith said the county planned to sell the existing fairgrounds to help pay for building on the new site. The fairgrounds’ Facebook post on the move promised “better seating for our Famous Whoopee Days Rodeo!”

Johnson set a target for the move in his own count. “It is my goal in five years — it is our 100th anniversary (at the Madison County Fairgrounds) and I would love to have the fair and rodeo there for that,” he said in 2024. The fairgrounds’ own history page dates the parcel to 1911. A separate committee was handling the design. Johnson said the plans call for 300 horse stalls, 200 RV spots, an indoor arena of 200 by 400, and a walking path, a playground, and a grassy area for use outside fair and rodeo events.