Smith Valley Fun Days

Two days at Dressler Park

Smith Valley Fun Days is held at Dressler Park, 2675 State Route 208, in Wellington, Nevada. The park’s gazebo is its fixed point. The Smith Valley Park and Recreation Board has also met there. On a Friday in December 2025 the board gathered at the gazebo to choose a site and layout for an additional baseball practice field.

Lyon County lists the festival among the events of Yerington, Mason Valley and Smith Valley. The county calls it “a two day family event at beautiful Dressler Park sponsored by the Rotary Club of Smith Valley,” with “many things to do from arts and crafts to tractor pulls and more.” The Yerington Main Street Committee’s calendar enters it as Smith Valley Days, held the first weekend of October. The 2026 edition, billed as the 57th Annual Fun Days, ran on October 3 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and on October 4 from 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

The Rotary Club of Smith Valley describes itself as an organization of business and professional leaders in the Wellington-Smith area. It meets on Thursdays at Rosie’s Place & Cantina, a short way up Route 208. Don Hudson, the club’s president, is the contact for the 2026 festival. He took office in July 2026, succeeding Nicole Rigsby, who still heads the club’s youth programs. George Thanash is president elect.

A Sunday in 2018

The club’s printed program for 2018 gives the shape of the weekend. Saturday was given over to the tractor pull, from noon to close, along with the concession stands.

Sunday began at 7:00 a.m. with the Grange Kids Breakfast. The trap shoot opened at 8:00. The horse trail trial and poker run followed at 8:30, and the flag was raised and dedicated at 9:00. Then the rest of the grounds opened:

• the craft fair
• the car show
• the Pine Needlers Quilt Show
• a display of horse-drawn vehicles

Dog agility ran at 11:30 and again at 1:00. A barbecue was served at the gazebo at noon while the tractors pulled again. The silent auction closed at 2:00, and the raffle drawing followed.

The 2018 festival was the club’s 50th Annual Fundays. In a report posted that November, the club wrote that Saturday “was a little wet in spots for the tractor pull but that didn’t slow the participants at all.” On Sunday the Grange kids served a pancake breakfast, and there was an afternoon steak barbecue. Craft and information booths filled the grounds, and Martin’s Show and Shine Car Show brought in cars. The horse-drawn vehicles came “with participants in dress from the era of their vehicle.”

The Grange kids appear in nearly every account the club keeps. At its 50th annual Lamb Feed, held the same year, the club called them “such an integral part” of all its events. Bonnie Chelone was thanked there as the one “who pulls order out of chaos.”

The year the lambs didn’t feed

In March 2020 the club called off its meetings and its Easter Egg Hunt because of the coronavirus. It said then that the August Lamb Feed and the Fundays events would go forward, “though flexibility may be required.”

On August 24, 2020, club president Doug Williamson wrote to supporters to cancel the Fun Days set for October 3 and 4. “Many months of planning to make this a safe event working with our Club Members and the board of health was nullified by circumstances beyond our control,” he wrote. It was, he noted, the third major fund raiser the club had lost that year.

His letter listed what the events paid for:

• an eighth-grade leadership program and Rotary Youth Leadership
• the children’s Easter Egg Hunt
• a first-grade Christmas party
• scholarships for graduating seniors
• dictionaries for third graders
• grants to the Yerington Food Pantry
• a handicap ramp for the Community Hall
• the historical society
• projects at Dressler Park itself

A month later the club put up a raffle. Tickets at $5 were for a Traeger Tailgater 20 or an original watercolor painting, and tickets at $3 were for themed baskets. The drawing was set for October 29, 2020. The notice carried a verse:

“Our lambs didn’t feed Our Fun Days weren’t FUN So, we’re trying to make up For what’s been undone!”