Ronan Pioneer Days

On the Friday morning of Pioneer Days, children fish Spring Creek in Ronan City Park, and the smallest of them angle in plastic pools. Parents come along to bait hooks, to teach what to do when a fish bites, and to show how to reel one in or net it. Westland Seed runs the derby. For the 2026 edition, Lucky Larson reserved the fish ahead of time. The derby is the first event of a three-day town celebration in Lake County, held in early August and run by the volunteer Pioneer Days committee under its president, AJ Bigby. The 2026 weekend ran July 31 through August 2 under the theme “Horsin’ Around.” It took in street dances on Friday and Saturday nights, a golf scramble at Mission Mountain Golf Club, a car show, tournaments in softball, volleyball and 3-on-3 basketball, and on Sunday the Big Parade.

Sheep, chickens and stick horses

Saturday in 2026 opened early. Runners registered at 7 a.m. for the 44th annual Mission Mountain Classic and started at 8. The 3-on-3 games began at the same hour in the middle school parking lot, and softball followed at 9 on the fields on Mink Lane. At 10 the car show set up by Glacier Bank. In 2025 it filled the bank’s south lawn.

At noon the City Slicker Rodeo, which the committee also calls the Kiddie Slicker Rodeo, opens in the fairgrounds arena for two hours. It is a rodeo for children. Waivers must be signed before anyone enters the arena. The program includes stick horse racing, piggyback barrel racing for a child and a “horse” partner, and chicken chasing, which the committee’s notice glosses as “catching.” Sheep riding, or mutton busting, costs $5 a rider, with a 60-pound weight limit and an age limit of 7. The chickens come from local people, who answer the committee’s call in July for birds. After the 2026 edition, the committee’s thanks went to a volunteer named only as Amanda: “Amanda you always do an amazing job with this!”

A pony keg loose on Main Street

The 2026 weekend added Capture the Pony…Keg, a scavenger hunt from 3 to 6 p.m. on Saturday. Teams registered at a Pioneer Days table on the block of Main Street where City Hall stands. The committee’s notice reported a horse missing. “Sweet Beer’it” was described as the fastest horse around, skilled at volleyball, golf, softball, basketball and barrel racing, and the company’s prized possession. “He likes to wander around town to all the local bars,” the notice read. “If he’s walking a straight line, someone forgot to fill his bucket!” The ponies were hidden around town. The notice named the Valley Club, the Pheasant, the 2nd Chance Saloon and Ronan Cooperative Brewery.

At 6 p.m. the open rodeo began at the fairgrounds, and the night ended with dancing in the streets.

The Big Parade and the Sunday rodeo

Sunday begins at 9 a.m. with volleyball in the City Park. Parade entries line up at 10, judging starts at 11:30, and at 12:30 p.m. the Big Parade steps off on Main Street. The Daily Inter Lake calls it “ever-popular.” At 3 p.m. the rodeo runs again.

The 2026 rodeo card listed bareback, saddle and ranch broncs, bulls, breakaway and team roping, barrel racing and youth barrels. It also had the Iron Cowgirl run and rope competition and calcuttas. Leland McMillan of Rodeo Productions LKC brought the stock and set up the pens and chutes. The Pioneer Days committee ran the concession stand and the beer garden. A Ronan tourism guide also lists a community pancake breakfast among the weekend’s attractions and calls it “legendary.”

A rodeo cancelled and restored

The rodeo has historically been held at the fairgrounds in Ronan. The Lake County Leader photographed one rider there in 2005: Jackson Hutchinson of Eureka, holding on as a steer bucked under him at that year’s Pioneer Days rodeo.

The 2025 weekend, August 1 to 3, had three rodeos at the fairgrounds, which the Leader reported was “now sporting new bleachers.” Bulls and Broncs opened at 7:30 Friday night, an open rodeo followed Saturday night, and another came Sunday afternoon. That year’s theme was “Beach Party.” It honored a new event, the City Slicker Summer Splash, an inflatable water attraction from Dew Crew Inflatables set up at the fairgrounds on Saturday.

By the summer of 2026 the old arena would not do. The Daily Inter Lake reported on June 26 that the city of Ronan had been given the Mission Range Event Complex two years earlier. The understanding was that the Pioneer Days committee would lease at least 10 acres of it to build a rodeo arena, stock pens and seating. That work had taken longer than expected. Elmo McDonald, who had supplied rough stock and his own chutes for years, said he would not bring his animals to Ronan because the fairgrounds chutes could not handle big saddle broncs and bucking bulls. Committee members added that the fairgrounds lacked parking for contestants. They said the arena, a former baseball field, was too small for rodeo action. The committee announced there would be no Bulls and Broncs and no open rodeo. “We want to have the new arena up and going by next year,” Bigby said. The committee’s statement promised that “2027 is slated to be a banner year with the rodeo back bigger and better than ever.”

Fans answered that it would not be Pioneer Days weekend without a rodeo. The Friends of the Fairground and the Lake County Fair Board took up the idea of an open rodeo at the fairgrounds. Fair Board member Mike Lien brought it to the Lake County Commissioners at a Tuesday morning meeting. “We’re doing it for the community,” he said. “We need the community to come together.” The commissioners gave their blessing. Commissioner Gale Decker offered to help for a day, “maybe drive a tractor.” Fair Board member Paul Toussaint told doubters to “watch and see how it’s done cause we’re gonna get ‘er done.” The Leader announced on July 2 that the rodeo was on again, and it ran on Saturday and Sunday as the weekend’s schedule showed.

After the Horsin’ Around parade, the committee posted the theme for 2027: “Field of Dreams.”