Northern Gila County Fair

The junior livestock auction at the 2026 Northern Gila County Fair was set for four o’clock on Saturday, October 3, in the livestock tent at the Payson Event Center on the Beeline Highway. In the weeks before, the fair’s page introduced the sellers one at a time. Rigdon and his pig, Chubbs, had “been working hard to look good and tasty.” Hunter Bonnette raised a turkey and a swine. Eliana Liddell would auction her goat, Oliver. Autumn Weinland brought a goat named Dali Joe and a turkey named Besty, and Calista brought a goat, Chip, and a turkey, Dorito. Hayleigh Lajzer showed a steer called Ollie.

The 2026 fair was the 72nd. It ran October 1 to 3 under the motto “Growing Traditions Since 1955,” with Fayth Lowery as president, and it was split between two grounds. The arena, the livestock tent and the stage stood at the Payson Event Center. The exhibit hall filled the ballroom of the Mazatzal Hotel & Casino with art, photography, floriculture, agriculture, domestic science, woodworking, metalwork and school work, and free bounce houses ran there from nine to six each day. The fair’s own pages state the rule plainly: “Rain or shine the fair must go on!”

The arena and the KMOG Stage

The gates opened at 9 a.m. Thursday, with Kids Day activities in the Wild West Kids Zone until two. The zone had corn hole, roping dummies, carnival games and music, and the Payson Roundup placed a petting zoo near the rodeo grounds. The mini carnival had a 40-foot slide, a fun house, a family ride and a game trailer. Organizers described it as “starting small.” At six on Thursday came the opening ceremony, Hailing Our Heroes, which honored veterans, first responders and others nominated by their neighbors. According to festival committee member John Rittenour, the color guard would attend and Star Valley Mayor Bobby Davis would make the presentation.

The arena program built across three days. A K9 demonstration came Friday at 11 a.m. and goat roping at one. That evening at six, mutton bustin’ opened the slate. Its full title is the Arizona State Championship Mutton Bustin’. Bull riding followed it. A second bull riding came Saturday at 12:30, and the ranch rodeo closed the fair at six that evening. Both bull ridings were called by Tonka Baj, owner of BullBiz. According to the fair, he rode bulls for 21 years before he turned to rodeo production and announcing.

Across the grounds the KMOG Stage carried the music. On Thursday the magician John Fitzsimmons played in the morning, and the Beeline Line Concert Band and the Rim Country Band played later. Friday brought a singer-songwriter showcase and Stephen Deak Dietrich, and Moonshine Mafia played from eight to ten. Saturday opened with Tiana Hula Dance at ten. Western Fusion followed, then Doyle Figueroa on solo guitar. Kristen Merlin closed the stage at 8 p.m. The Roundup identified her as a singer from NBC’s “The Voice.” All Saturday, from nine to six, the Arizona State Champion Fiddle Festival played at its own station on the fair map.

Much of the arena program came from a new partner. The B.U.C.K.L.E. Festival made its debut in 2026, and its letters stand for Bull Riding, Unity, Culture, Kids Rodeo, Live Entertainment and Experience. It was organized by Payson Parks and Recreation, the fair, the Cowboy Lifestyle Network and Mazatzal Casino. Rittenour told the Roundup that his committee had begun planning a cultural festival before it learned that the fair, held for decades in September, was considering a move to the first weekend in October. “The suggestion was made that we combine the fair with our Buckle Festival and really make it a much bigger event,” Rittenour said. “We really want to capture the country-mountain lifestyle, and we want to capture the Western heritage; try to bring it to the community.” Through the Cowboy Lifestyle Network he arranged professional bull riding in Payson outside the two annual rodeos of the Payson Pro Rodeo Committee. “We just feel like it’s Payson’s turn,” he said. The organizers’ plans for fall 2027 call for a multi-venue music and cultural festival with several stages.

Barrels for Colten Boyle

The fair opened its arena on Thursday evening with a barrel race. The schedule and the fair’s memorial page spell the name Colten Boyle, and the fair’s home page spells it Colton. He was a team roper from the Payson and Pine-Strawberry country. The fair’s memorial page tells why the race carries his name. The last time the fair held a barrel race, the committee asked Colten and his friends to set the barrels. He made no secret that barrel racing was “not exactly his thing,” and he teased about it. Even so, he spent the whole night setting barrels with his friends, “with a rope in his hand and a smile on his face,” for an event that was not his own. His life was cut short. The race on the evening of October 1, 2026, ran in his memory, and the page put it in one line: “On Thursday, October 1st, as we barrel race, we run for him.”

Canned goods under the rodeo stands

The fair is older than its count. The Northern Gila County Historical Society’s Rim Country Museum gives its history from Stan Brown’s The Story of Payson, Arizona, and that history begins with Payson’s rodeo, which people called the August Doin’s. From 1884 the rodeo was held in Pieper’s field, where the sawmill later stood. Before 1900 it moved onto Main Street. Automobiles and growing crowds made the street too dangerous, and by 1920 it was out west of town in the Wilbanks’ pasture. There the rodeo opened with everyone at attention while the flag was carried onto the field and a scratchy record of the national anthem played on a wind-up Victrola. Families camped under the trees and hung sheets between camps for privacy. One ranch wife recalled 19 people staying with her for five days.

In 1928 viewing stands were built in the bowl south of today’s golf course. Beneath them, each year, ran a competition for the best crops and canned goods. In the museum’s account, that competition was later moved to Pine and became the Northern Gila County Fair. The rodeo kept moving as well: to the junction of highways 260 and 87, then in 1968 to the grounds later named Rumsey Park. In 2000 its grandstands were moved to the Payson Events Center south of town. The fair now sets up on those grounds.

Pies, wheelbarrows and a watermelon

In 2005 the fair came back after a two-year absence. The Roundup reported that the 51st fair would run September 9 to 11 at the Payson Multi-event Center and in the Tonto Apache Tribe’s gymnasium. Wendell Stevens had taken over as chairman from Walt and Wilene Smith, who had guided the fair for many years and had helped bring it back. Ribbons came with cash prizes of $3, $2 and $1. Gary Bedsworth, who had moved from Minnesota the year before, headed domestic science, and judges tasted the cakes, pies and pastries. Eileen Lawson had chaired floriculture longer than she could remember. “We get pots with plants that I can barely lift,” she said. “We’ve had huge trees come in and big potted bowls of cacti.” That year she added a new class for arrangements built in wheelbarrows. In her words, an entrant might use a porch plant “along with a pumpkin, or a bale of hay.” The program also had bluegrass from the Sandoval family, square dancers from the Zane Grey Twirlers and a pie-eating contest.

By 2010 the fair was followed by a demolition derby. Its promoters, Nelson Beck and Scott Honeycutt, brought it to Northern Gila County, and the Roundup reported crowds of more than 2,500 at the Event Center. That year the fair moved entirely onto the Event Center grounds instead of sharing space with the Tonto Apache Recreation Center. According to Beck, exhibits went into big tents on the north and south sides of the arena. The derby ran 1970s and 1980s four-door sedans and a trucks-only class. “Trucks are kind of our signature event, it’s something we do that others don’t,” Beck said. In 2007 a truck prepared by Dan and Rob Shover at Coyote Auto won the truck class and was invited into the automobile division. Before each derby the drivers made a grand entry. Then came the warm-up event, a race to be first to drive over and squash a watermelon set in the middle of the arena.