Idaho’s Living History
BY ISAIAH FRIZZELL
Did you make it to the Trailing of the Sheep Festival this year? If you live in Ketchum, chances are you were at the parade with those woolly critters.
Laura Musbach Drake first got involved with the festival in 2015 while running the sheepdog trials. She signed on as the executive director shortly after and has been helming the festival for the last eight years.
“We’re just so grateful!” said Drake. “The festival felt really good at all the events. There were a lot of people and people seemed happy. We didn’t have any fires and we had displaced our sheep this year so we had a full band coming down the street for the parade.” Drake was enthusiastic about the wonderful weather and the amazing turnout.
Typically, the festival sees around 10,000-12,000 people at the parade alone and an estimated 25,000 cumulatively over the course of the five days and the bonus dinner.
There were a variety of new programming and events with the most exciting being Fiona McMillan, an International Sheepdog Trials judge from Scotland, who came in to judge the trials this year. McMillan has been involved in the International Sheepdog Society for the last 30 years and is on track to become the first female president of that organization this November.
The National Qualifying Sheep Dog Trials were held just north of Hailey off of Buttercup Road, in spite of construction, with special thanks to the Kowitz Family for lending sheep this year.
“This year, because we lost John Peavey, one of our co-founders, in June, we did have a celebration of life for him on Saturday night during the festival,” said Drake.” It was a lovely gathering of family and friends and people who shared their stories about John and just what an amazing man he was. His passing was such a loss to our Wood River Valley community, our Idaho community and certainly the Trailing of the Sheep Festival family, but at least we were able to gather and celebrate him during the festival. We did record that evening so that his family will be able to watch and hear those stories for years to come. It was a bittersweet celebration, of course, but we were grateful to be able to honor John when there were so many people that could gather together during the festival.”
The video of the celebration of life for John Peavey will be on the festival’s website as soon as editing is completed. Stay tuned at https://trailingofthesheep.org
Drake continues with gratitude: “I just want to say thank you to our locals and our visitors. Really, it’s the energy of the people coming to celebrate with us and learn more about sheep and sheep ranching. It’s everyone coming together and coming to the festival that makes it a success. I mean, we can do all the planning that we want and we can be grateful to Mother Nature, but, all in all, it’s the festivalgoers who come and meet new people and bring new friends and make new friends that make the festival such a wonderful experience.”
Thankfully, the Main Street closures in Ketchum weren’t too much of an obstacle.
What was your favorite event of the festival?
Next year’s Trailing of the Sheep Festival will be a bit later in the month, from October 8–12, 2025.