Stanwood-Camano Community Fair

The Stanwood-Camano Community Fair begins on a Thursday, when the animals are hauled in. On haul-in day no admission is charged at the grounds on Pioneer Highway, the exhibit halls stay shut, and the barns fill for the weekend. The carnival opens that evening. The fair proper runs Friday through Sunday, on what its own page calls the first full weekend in August. The 2026 fair ran July 31 to August 2, and the 2027 fair is set for August 6, 7, and 8.

The fairgrounds lie three miles west of Interstate 5 on State Route 532 and half a mile down 64th Avenue. The buildings stand on one side of the road and the parking lot on the other, where the fee is cash only. A free shuttle runs every fifteen minutes from Stanwood High School to the gate. Beside the Bonnie Susan Cole Youth Exhibition Hall stands the Stillaguamish Grange Hall, and the fair began with the Grange.

Hog calling in the Swine Arena

Each fair day opens at 9 a.m. with a ceremony at the flag pole by the Viking Stage. The published schedule for 2027 then fills the arenas. Friday brings a dairy and beef fitting challenge in the cattle barn, then poultry, waterfowl, and pigeon showing. Swine and fiber goats follow, along with the Sheep Bowl and rabbit and cavy judging. At 6 p.m. the Swine Arena holds a hog calling contest, “PUBLIC WELCOME.” A quarter hour later the Lads and Ladies Lead begins in the Sheep Arena.

Saturday morning starts with alpaca and llama races in the Swine Arena. The afternoon brings chicken agility in the Small Animal Barn, a swine obstacle course, and the Swine Bowl. Sunday holds the quiz bowls, a large animal round robin, and a large and small animal dress-up, and the awards are given barn by barn into the late afternoon. Horse events and a dog show run each morning. At 2 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday there is a threshing demonstration east of the carnival.

The halls hold the rest. The fair counts nearly 700 exhibitors showing more than 3,400 exhibits: animals small and large, baked goods, farm products, clothing, horticulture, flowers, and arts and crafts. It pays out $12,000 in premium money and awards. The Victor Spane Adult Exhibit Hall hosts a Lego building contest and a Grandparents Cookie Contest. The Bonnie Susan Cole Youth Exhibit Hall hosts a Make It and Take It sewing demonstration through the afternoons, a veggie contest, flower arrangements, and practice for the style show. Entry is open widely. Barb Carroll, a longtime volunteer, told The Herald in 2009 that no one needs to belong to 4-H or Future Farmers of America to enter a rabbit or a watercolor painting.

Pets are not admitted, only trained service dogs. The fair gives the health and safety of the livestock as its reason.

The Viking Stage and the midway

The Viking Main Stage carries the opening ceremonies, a youth lip sync and karaoke competition, and the music. The board says that on a modest community budget it books local talent and family entertainment over costly big-name concerts. Tribute bands have often filled the evenings. In 2009 they were Hell’s Belles, playing AC/DC, on Friday and the Atomic Punks, playing Van Halen, on Saturday. On Friday, July 31, 2026, at 8 p.m., the bill was Fastlane, a Celebration of the Eagles. In 2004 there were two stages, and on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. the Cascade Racing Mowers raced riding lawnmowers in the horse arena.

The carnival is run by an independent company that sets its own rides, height rules, and prices. It opens at noon on fair days.

Saturday morning belongs partly to downtown, where the Stanwood-Camano Rotary Club holds its fair parade. Ahead of the 2026 fair, the fair told visitors that while most of the town watched the parade, the grounds would stay quiet after the 9 a.m. opening. It called that the hour to walk the barns and buy food without a line. The 2009 parade ran along 271st Street NW under the theme Community Pride, with police and fire officials honored for their work in the previous winter’s snows and flooding. The TV clown J.P. Patches, then in his 50th year in show business, shared the grand marshal’s seat. He was billed to perform at noon Sunday on the Viking Stage.

The 2026 fair was wet from start to finish. On Saturday, August 1, the fair handed out 200 collectible bracelets as a Rainy Day Prize at its ticket booths. Later that day it posted, “Good news - the carnival is back open!!” A pie eating contest went on at 1 p.m. on Sunday. Afterward the fair asked owners to claim “quite a collection of lost key rings” from its lost and found.

A Grange harvest day, 1932

The fair dates to 1932, during the Great Depression, when it was a one-day harvest celebration. The Stillaguamish Grange organized it and also provided the site. A 2025 history in the Stanwood Camano News, drawing on the fair’s own account, says that first day featured local produce and crafts and became an annual event that grew in popularity.

The town held other harvest celebrations in those years. After a Diamond Jubilee in August 1933 for the 75th anniversary of Stanwood’s founding, town leaders started a Harvest Jubilee in August 1934. Its floats wound through Stanwood and East Stanwood, and it had a merry-go-round and a Ferris wheel. More than 5,000 people came in 1940, and youngsters climbed halfway up the water tower to watch the log bucking contest. The Jubilee ended in 1942, likely because of World War II. The Grange fair went on. The Silvana Fair, nearby, started in 1947.

In the early 1960s the Grange turned the fair over to a board of directors elected from the Stanwood-Camano community. A 2023 Stanwood Camano News article puts the year at 1961 and calls the fair the largest community fair in the state. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 2004 said the fair was “billed as” the largest. Attendance figures differ by source. The Post-Intelligencer gave up to 40,000 in 2004, and The Herald reported more than 42,000 expected over three days in 2009. The Stanwood Camano News counted about 14,000 attendees in 2023.

Four hundred volunteers and one manager

The board has 24 directors serving three-year terms. Volunteers handle every part of the fair, working with the Fair Manager, who is the only paid employee. The fair’s own count is about 400 volunteers to open and run the three days. Kevin Plambeck, board president in 2023, put it at “over 300.” The money comes from the gate, from donations, and from the state Department of Agriculture, which reimburses the premium money paid to exhibitors. Rentals of the buildings and grounds in the off-season bring in the rest.

Barb Carroll had volunteered for nearly 20 years in 2009, sat on the board, and helped oversee the other 399 volunteers. “It’s the biggest deal in our area,” she said. “People who move away always come back to visit at fair time. Everybody attends.” She also said, “I tell people we’re the same as the big fairs, just smaller and friendlier.”

The fair was last held in 2019 before a two-year gap brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and its supply-chain problems. “We wanted to have the fair last year, but our suppliers were not able to make it happen,” said fair manager Belinda Royal in May 2022. “So we immediately began planning for 2022.” It returned that August 5 to 7 under the theme Big Time Fun ‘til the Cows Come Home. It added brighter exterior lighting and a reorganized youth exhibit area, and it was still raising money for shade over the entertainment area. Some volunteers had not come back. Margaret Olson, a board member, said exhibits made since the last fair were eligible: “So all those pandemic projects can be entered.”

On August 24, 2023, Island County Commissioner Janet St. Clair named Plambeck and board member Austin Bougie her hometown heroes. “Our forefather board members are really the heroes because they got the organization started,” Plambeck said. Bougie, about 15 years on the board and a former president, spoke of the community: “With this community, if you need something, you ask, they’ll step up.”