HOMECOMING 2026

Mid-century Burdick Lumber at 101 West 100 North, Payson.

(Colorized ad appeared in The Payson Chronicle)

 

Autumn Ads

 

Subscribe to The Payson Chronicle

 

Payson Homecoming: Safeway

 

HOMECOMING: Safeway (colorized ad published in The Payson Chronicle in June 1953)

2026 Great Duck Race

Great Peteetneet Duck Race A Raiser Of Funds For Museum

Pictured are prizes for a few lucky ducks. They’re at the Peteetneet. Take a look at them while adopting a duck for Labor Day’s race.

Revelers won’t want to duck out of the Peteetneet’s annual Golden Onion Days fundraiser — the Great Peteetneet Duck Race. The race commences Monday, September 7, at Memorial Park, starting at 4 PM, with rubber duck “adoptions” available prior.

Stop by the Peteetneet Museum and Cultural Arts Center to get your ducks in row for this fun fund-racer. Adoptions cost $5 per duck. With five adoptions, the sixth little racer is free.

The race location is near the restrooms and rock bridge in Memorial Park. Prizes will be awarded to the first three ducks that cross the finish line on Labor Day afternoon. 

Happy Golden Onion Days

 

Tradition

 GOLDEN ONION DAYS 

Payson’s Labor Day Homecoming Tradition

Carnival rides, art and flower shows, breakfasts, theater, concerts and a parade turn the holiday weekend into a community reunion

By Don Charles Dixon

PICTURED: Ladies with a front row view in the chairs they set out along Main Street for a Golden Onion Days parade in a mid-century Payson. (Photo courtesy of the historical Payson Junior Cultus Club scrapbook collection)

PAYSON — Long before the carnival lights begin to flash in Memorial Park and days before the first marching band steps onto Main Street, there is a sure sign that Golden Onion Days is coming.

The chairs begin to appear.

Families place lawn chairs along the parade route days before the Labor Day parade, claiming the familiar spots where parents, children, grandparents, and old friends have watched the celebration unfold for years.

Some chairs sit empty for days, lined neatly along the curb like quiet promises that their owners will return Monday morning.

And they do.

Golden Onion Days has become more than a city celebration. For generations of Payson residents, it has been a homecoming.

The tradition began in 1929 as Payson’s Onion Harvest and Homecoming celebration, honoring the onion growers and other farmers whose crops helped support the community.

As the years passed, the festival grew. Horse races, athletic competitions, games, music, exhibits and entertainment were added. Eventually the Labor Day weekend became filled from Thursday right through Monday evening.

 

Some activities have disappeared. Others have become traditions of their own. But the spirit has remained remarkably similar. Payson comes together.

For children, one of the first signs of Onion Days has always been the carnival trucks arriving. Trailers pull into Memorial Park carrying rides folded into strange shapes. Crews begin raising steel frames. Within a short time, the park is transformed. At night the rides turn beneath flashing lights while music, bells, and laughter fill the park. Children carry tickets in their hands and move from one ride to another. Carnival games offer stuffed animals and prizes to anyone who can knock down the bottles, make the basket or land the ball in exactly the right place.

The smell of popcorn, cotton candy, hamburgers, and other carnival food spreads beneath the trees. Parents wait beside the rides. Teenagers meet friends. Grandparents sit and watch another generation enjoy the same Labor Day excitement.

For years, Onion Days weekend has begun with music on Thursday evening. Mountain View Hospital has sponsored a Thursday night concert at the Peteetneet amphitheater, bringing families to the historic school grounds before the busiest days of the celebration begin.

People bring blankets and lawn chairs and spread across the hillside and amphitheater seating. The old Peteetneet building stands behind the crowd while the music carries into the summer evening.

It has become one of those Onion Days traditions that feels both large and small at the same time — a community concert where many may attend, yet people continually turn around to greet neighbors they know.

Inside the Peteetneet Museum and Cultural Arts Center another side of Payson is displayed during Onion Days. The art, flower and craft shows bring together gardeners, artists and craftspeople from the community. Flowers grown during the summer are carefully arranged and brought to the Peteetneet for judging and display. Roses, dahlias, zinnias, sunflowers and other varieties provide color throughout the exhibit.

The craft show reflects another tradition — making things by hand. Quilts, needlework, woodworking, paintings, decorative pieces, and other handmade items show the talent that often stays hidden in homes and workshops during the rest of the year.

Visitors walk slowly through the displays, stopping to read names and admire what their neighbors have grown and created.

Saturday morning brings another long-standing gathering, the Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast. City leaders, residents and invited guests gather for breakfast and a morning of gratitude, faith and community fellowship. Before the noise of the carnival and the competitions of the day take over, the prayer breakfast provides a quieter beginning. It reminds those attending that Onion Days is not only about entertainment. It is also about gratitude for the community and the people who built it.

Among the activities that have brought both excitement and ingenuity to Onion Days is the soap box derby. Young racers climb into homemade gravity-powered cars and wait for their turn at the starting line. There is no engine. Gravity provides the power, but good wheels, careful construction, steering and courage determine what happens on the way down.

Parents and grandparents help build the cars, but when the race begins, the young driver is on their own. The starting signal is given. The car begins to roll. Then it picks up speed. Spectators cheer as the racers head toward the finish.

The soap box derby fits perfectly with the spirit of Onion Days — a mixture of competition, family involvement and homemade fun.

Perhaps no Onion Days competition has produced quite as many laughs as the outhouse race. Teams built and decorated outhouses on wheels and then raced them, with pushers providing the horsepower. There was nothing graceful about it. That was the point. Outhouses rattled and bounced down the course while teams pushed as hard as they could and spectators laughed and cheered. Some were built for speed. Others seemed built mainly to make people laugh. All of them were memorable.

The event represented the kind of humor that has long been part of small town celebrations — people willing to look a little ridiculous if it gives their neighbors a good laugh.

The Onion Days car show brings a different kind of machine to the celebration. Classic cars, restored pickups, muscle cars, custom and hot rods are polished until the chrome shines. People walk slowly between the rows, stopping to look under hoods and study interiors. For many older visitors, the cars bring back memories.

“That was my first car.”

“My dad had one just like that.”

“I wish I had never sold mine.”

For younger visitors, the show is an opportunity to see machines from an era before computerized dashboards and electronic controls.

The owners are often as much a part of the show as the automobiles themselves, telling the stories of where the car was found, how long restoration took, and what still needs to be done.

Another Onion Days tradition takes place beneath the stage lights rather than those of the carnival. Each year Payson Community Theater presents its summer production during the Golden Onion Days season, and the performances have become one of the most anticipated cultural events of the celebration.The productions regularly draw large crowds and performances often sell out.

Months of work go into the show. Actors rehearse lines and music. Costumes are made. Sets are built and painted. Lighting is arranged. Musicians practice. Volunteers work behind the scenes. 

Then the curtain rises.

For a few hours, local accountants, teachers, students, parents, business owners and retirees become characters from another place and time. Theater has become an important part of Onion Days because it demonstrates something the celebration has always done — allowing Payson residents to entertain one another.

Payson’s fascination with machines has not been limited to cars and carnival rides. The community’s aviation story began surprisingly early. An airport was operating in the Payson area during the early days of aviation, and by the 1920s airplanes and exhibition flights were bringing residents to look toward the sky. At a time when many people had never ridden in an automobile very far from home, an airplane seemed almost impossible.

People watched pilots take off from open fields and climb above the farms surrounding Payson. For some, an airplane flight became an unforgettable experience — seeing the streets, homes, orchards, and fields of their hometown from above.

Decades later, Onion Days would bring that excitement back. During the 1980s and 1990s, helicopter rides became an attraction. The sound could be heard before the helicopter was seen. The blades began slowly. Whup. Whup. Whup. Then faster.

Passengers climbed aboard and lifted into the air for a short flight over Payson. From above they could see Memorial Park, the carnival, Main Street, the fields and the mountains surrounding the valley.

The aircraft had changed since those early airplane flights of the 1920s. The excitement had not.

Labor Day Monday begins early. Before the parade, before the bands and floats move onto Main Street, families gather for the Payson Civic Chorale’s breakfast. The breakfast has become part of parade day itself. People arrive hungry, sit down with friends and neighbors and begin talking about where everyone plans to watch the parade.

Some are already wearing shirts identifying them as members of a float, band, organization or volunteer crew. Others are simply enjoying breakfast before walking to the chairs they placed along Main Street days earlier.

For many families, breakfast and the parade belong together. One follows the other. 

Visitors sometimes find one Payson tradition surprising. The parade may be on Monday, but the chairs arrive much earlier along Main Street. One family puts theirs out. Then another. Soon long sections of the parade route are lined with them.

They sit empty overnight. Cars pass by. People walk by them. Rain might fall on them. But everyone knows what those chairs mean. Someone has a place. Often it is the same place the family has used year after year.

By Monday morning, the empty chairs are filled. Children move toward the curb with bags ready for candy. Parents visit with the people sitting beside them. Grandparents point down the street when they hear the first distant sound of a marching band. Then come the police cars, fire engines, flags, floats, horses, queens, businesses, school groups and bands. Candy sails toward the curb. Children scramble and people wave. The Golden Onion Days parade moves through town. And for a few hours, it seems that nearly all of Payson is gathered along one street.

Over the decades Golden Onion Days has included almost every kind of community competition imaginable. There have been foot races, softball games, basketball tournaments, swimming events, horseshoe tournaments, golf events, children’s games, and athletic competitions. Some people enter to win. Others enter because their family and neighbors talked them into it. The difference usually becomes unimportant once the event begins. The point is participation.

That same spirit can be found in the flower show, the soap box derby, the outhouse race, and the community theater production. One person grows something. Another builds something. Another sings. Another acts. Another race, another volunteers. Together, we make Onion Days happen.

Payson has changed enormously since the first Onion Harvest and Homecoming in 1929. The onion fields that once surrounded the community have given way in many places to neighborhoods, schools and businesses. The old airport is part of another era. The horse races that once drew enormous crowds are remembered more often than they are seen.

Carnival rides have changed. Cars have changed. Even Main Street has changed. But every Labor Day weekend the old purpose of the celebration remains. People come home. Someone walking through Memorial Park sees a person they attended school with 40 years earlier. Families gather for breakfast. Children enjoy carnival rides. Gardeners proudly display their flowers. Craftspeople show what they have made. Actors take the stage. Soap box cars race downhill. Classic automobiles gleam in the sunlight. People laugh at an outhouse racing down the street. And on Monday morning, thousands gather along Main Street, many sitting in the chairs that had been waiting there for days. That may be the real meaning of Golden Onion Days.

The onion gave Payson a reason to begin the annual celebration. But the people gave it a reason to continue.

Nearly a century later, Golden Onion Days remains what it was intended to be from the start — Payson’s great Labor Day homecoming.

Homecoming: Payson Bakery

 

Payson Lions Club Scones

 

After The Storm

This afternoon’s storm left its calling card at the Santaquin Cemetery. City workers were assessing the damage shortly after.

Photos by Denise Windley

Lucky Pickering - 1957

 

Car Show

 

High School Reunions

 

advertEYES

Skyhawks Win — In this week’s edition of The Payson Chronicle

InnThis Week’s Edition of The Payson Chronicle

 

Mourning the Passing of Our Friend

 

JEANNINE COLE VAN AUSDAL

Jeannine Cole Van Ausdal passed away peacefully on August 22, 2026. She is survived by her daughters, Karyl Swift and Sheila Breen (Guy Walker) and was preceded in death by her husband of 77 years, Leo Neil Van Ausdal and her sons Dennis Kirk (infant) and Roger Neil.

She was born in Hurricane, Utah on May 4, 1929, the fourth of thirteen children born to her parents, Frank Forrest Cole and Elma Hinton Cole. She was delivered by her grandmother, Wilhelmina Hinton, who was the resident midwife for Hurricane and the surrounding area. Wilhelmine and her husband, Thomas, were the first settlers in Hurricane and she loved visiting them. Jeannine’s family lived in Nephi so visiting Hurricane was a rare and special event.

Jeannine lived and went to school in Nephi. She was president of the Pep Club in high school and also worked for a local photographer. One of her favorite activities was telling scary stories to her siblings at night. They would all hide under blankets so they could stifle their screams and avoid waking up their parents. When she was 13 years old, she met the love of her life, 15-year-old Neil Van Ausdal, who lived 26 miles away in Santaquin. They saw each other when they could and married the day before Jeannine’s 18th birthday. They lived in Orem for a short period of time, then purchased a lot in Santaquin for $300 and Neil built the house that they lived in until shortly before Neil died in 2025. They raised their three children there and Jeannine was active in the LDS church, serving as Relief Society President and then Primary President for several years.

When their youngest child entered junior high, Jeannine was recruited to go to school and become an engineer for Mountain Bell. She was the first woman engineer in the state of Utah, and was proud to pave the way for others to follow. She was responsible for planning and supervising the laying of fiberoptic cable in northeastern Utah. She retired in 1988 after 20 years of service.

Neil and Jeannine loved to camp and teamed up with friends from Santaquin to attend the Death Valley ‘49ers Encampment for many years. They also spent time in Quartzsite with some of the same friends where they would ride ATV’s and hike. Then they settled into Desert Cypress Mobile Home Park in Wickenburg and spent winters there for 25 years before shifting to staying with their daughter, Sheila, in Phoenix for the last five years before Neil died. Jeannine then lived with Sheila and her husband, Guy, until she passed. They also attended the annual Van Ausdal reunion at Boulder Mountain, Utah for 40 years. This was one of their favorite activities: spending time with family, telling stories around the campfire and being in the beautiful outdoors in southern Utah.

Jeannine was a master carver. It was a hobby that she started after she retired from Mountain Bell and she had a natural gift for carving walking sticks, wind spirits, and animals. Her bear carvings were exceptional, but it was her walking sticks that took first place in every competition in which she entered them. She and Neil teamed up to carve totem poles, golf ducks and other projects. Their cabin in the Uintah mountains is identified by the beautiful totem pole that marks the entrance to the driveway at Manor Lands.

She was proud of being from a large family. Only four siblings survive her: Gayle Pardew, Lannett Ortiz, Lanny Cole (Connie) and Roxanna Brereton. She is preceded in death by Keith Cole, Nadine Schneider, Elwin Cole, LaRae Green, Carma Johnson, Carolyn Crumb, Erma Oakley and Welsey Cole. We will miss her more than we can say, but she should be busy catching up with Neil and her family.

No services will be held.

Mourning the Passing of Our Friend

Jim Chase

Jim Chase, age 76, passed away on August 17, 2026, after a short battle with pancreatic cancer.

He was born to Vernon Francis Chase and Edna Martha Lutz on May 20, 1950, in Sioux Falls, SD. He lived on farms with his parents and siblings in Salem, Spencer, and Hillsview, all in South Dakota.

 In 1969, he was drafted into the US Army, trained as a medic, and ordered to an Army hospital in Tokyo, Japan. They did not need more Medics at that time, so he was reassigned to clerk duties in the distribution center, passing messages to various wards and departments and the daily teletype evacuation lists of patients.

 While he was stationed in Japan, he was introduced to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The spirit of truth he felt in the meetings and the eternal gospel principles were the reasons Jim joined the church in 1971.

After being honorably discharged from the Army in fall 1971, Jim returned home to Eureka, South Dakota, before moving to Logan, UT, to study at Utah State University and to be with the Saints.

In the summer of 1972, he married Debbie Taylor and began working at Moore Business Forms to support his growing family. In the following years, they had four children, Sue, Jake, Jenny, and Nick.

Jim always had a love of flying and obtained instrument and multi-engine ratings for commercial planes, as well as instrument and instructor ratings in all three licenses. He applied to airlines but never heard back. He did teach flying and participated in Civil Air Patrol. Jim was invited to run aviation at the University of North Dakota. However, because the offer was less than he made at Moore, he declined the opportunity.

Debbie left Jim, and they officially divorced in May of 1993. Jim was disappointed and participated in counseling, determined to do better. He did learn a great deal during this time and made many changes.

He took up the hobby of dancing at Retrix and met Adele Ford there Thanksgiving weekend of 1993.

March 4, 1994 Jim and Adele were married. Together they built a home in North Logan, Utah.

Adele’s mother was so impressed with their work, she asked, and Jim and Adele consented to build her a house in Richmond, Utah. It was a fun and rewarding project.

Jim continued to work at Moore. He never stopped learning. He earned certificates in Refrigeration, heating, cooling, electronics, and computer programming. He also sang in the ward choir led by Adele, and acted as a father in the party scene of the community production of the Nutcracker in Preston, Idaho with Adele and other extended family members. He served in church callings, and volunteered for Civil Air Patrol.

When Jim was downsized at Moore, Adele encouraged him to return to Utah State University where he completed a bachelor’s degree in Business with minor degrees in Accounting and Human Resources which he completed in 2 years.

Jim went on to complete a Master of Business degree with an emphasis in entrepreneurship in one year instead of the normal 2 years while simultaneously working as High Priest Group Leader in the North Logan Ward for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He once said if he didn’t have to work a job, he would just serve others.

Upon graduation in 2005, Jim and Adele moved to California because Jim accepted a position as an office manager at Chase Homes in the California Bay area. Adele sold insurance and subbed in the schools while Jim worked organizing the office, generating accounting and cash flow reports, paying vendors and writing up bids. He was laid off when the company changed direction.

Jim was next hired as a project manager at CONCO Companies, the largest concrete company up and down the West Coast.  He set up a fleet maintenance and software programs for the whole company which tracked parts inventory, maintenance schedules, and cost data for some 130 pickups, over 90 cement pumper trucks, numerous backhoes, dump trucks, semis and forklifts. This system would dump all the cost data into their accounting software program.

Once that project was done, he became a detailing engineer reading drawings and ordering rebar for various commercial projects.

Because Jim was laid off from CONCO at the end of the downturn in 2008-2009 and work was hard to find, Jim and Adele moved back to Utah. Jim got his Insurance License and began selling annuities to school teachers. The work came very slowly and after two and half years, he looked for other work. He found seasonal work at Walmart.  He finally retired and took social security.

Retirement turned out to be busy. It started with Jim and Adele building a house in Elk Ridge. Adele started teaching dance and music from home.

Never one to sit idle and always wanting to be useful, Jim went across the street to attend the city council meetings. People noticed his integrity, his logical mind, his attention to detail, his level head, and encouraged him to run for city council and/or Mayor.

Jim refused, not desiring the spotlight. He did volunteer work on the City Planning and Zoning Commission and was later appointed Chairman of the Planning and Zoning commission for Elk Ridge.

Jim and Adele served as temple workers for the Payson, Utah temple from 2015. When one of the city council members quit, Jim was appointed to the Elk Ridge City council.

When that term was up he ran for re-election and won city councilman and also served as Elk Ridge City Treasurer, helped Elk Ridge institute and run the CERT Program, a community emergency response training program.

Jim joined the Civil Air Patrol in Utah County and served as Safety officer.

In 2022, Jim’s son, Nick, died of Leukemia. He was 44 years old. Because Nick had appointed Jim as his executor, Jim served as an advisor on the board of the company Nick had managed for several years before his death.

After Jim joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, he served faithfully in many callings, sometimes as a leader; (ie,. Sunday School President, Second Councilor in the Stake Sunday School Presidency, Elder’s Quorum and High Priest Group Leader, member of the Bishopric), and sometimes as a teacher in; (Primary, Elders Quorum, High Priest Group.) Sometimes he served as an assistant because of his excellent record keeping skills; (ie High Priest secretary, Sunday school Secretary, church financial auditor, Temple Worker, etc).

Jim is preceded in death by his son, Nicholas, his Parents; Edna, and Vernon Chase, his brother, Loren (Monica) Chase.

He is survived by his wife Adele; her children Jason and Keenen (Nidia), his sisters; Marlys (Dave) Thompson, Arlene Chase, Darlene (Don) Schumacher, his children; Susanne(Nolan Turner), Jacob Morris Chase, and Jennifer, his grandchildren; Chandler(Julya B), Sterling, AJ, Madeline, Anfaney, Kayden(Nicole), Chevonna, Ethan, Abbigail, and one great grandchild, Clara.

He has many friends, loves his kids, grand kids, great grand kids and his Adele.

A Viewing will be held on Wednesday, September 9, 2026 from 9:45 – 10:45 a.m. at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints located at 450 North Elk Ridge Dr., Elk Ridge, Utah. A Celebration of Life will immediately follow, beginning at 11:00 a.m. at the same location. Interment will be at Utah Veterans Cemetery and Memorial Park located at 17111 South, Camp Williams Rd, Bluffdale, Utah.