Say "Pioneer Pie&Beer Pioneer Pie&Beer Pioneer Pie&Beer" and you will know why the exmos here call it "Pie and Beer" Day and then eat pie and beer to celebrate their pioneering out of the Church.
When I lived down South the ward use to head up to the mountains for their annual picnic, there was hiking, fishing, swimming, pot luck, it was all Mayberry like and everything!
I lived in the San Joaquin Valley of California when my dad needed to be there on LDS church business. We would have been there for three Pioneer Days. A ward in sort of a cowboy town there hosted a stake rodeo on one of the Pioneer Days. I remember a few people being injured, one seriously. My parents organized a picnic on another. I can't remember anything happening on the third one.
I grew up in Southern Idaho and our town was roughly 40% LDS. We always had a pioneer day parade around the church parking lot for the primary kids. We'd make little floats on our wagons and dress up in pioneer or cowboy dress. I remember as a kid that it was always stinking HOT.
In our ward, they were "around the block parades." My mother was always into decorating our trikes and bikes (for Peach Days children's parades in Brigham), too. Thinking about it now, she wasn't very social, but she sure did like doing these things.
Nowadays, it is "oh no, fireworks again, my boyfriend's 100+ pound German Shepherd will go bonkers want to sit on MY lap." I dread the 4th and 24th.
At my last job when I lived in Las Vegas, two women on my first "team" heard me say I moved there from Utah (although I'd been there 10 years already).
One was a lovely Phillipino woman who made delicious lumpia ? every time we had a pot luck and she didn't waste any time asking what area of town I lived in so she could tell me where to go to church.
The other woman wasn't active(she married a non-mo) but her kids went to church with her parents and she wanted to make sure I knew where to go.
One year, I got an invitation from both of them to go to the Stake 24th of July Celebration (turns out they were in the same stake), but darn it, I had to work that day. They kept asking me to come and I kept saying no. THey were always friendly but I think they got the message that I wasn't interested in going to church.
Yes. There are parts of Mormondom outside of Utah that celebrate the day. It's usually a town holiday and can include parades down main street and a day of games.
It was pretty much ignored in New York because a lot of people in the ward never heard of it. We finally did have a Pioneer Day picnic though and educated ourselves. Turns out it was a big deal for Utahns, as it should be I guess.
I grew up in Texas, and it was ignored, but maybe mentioned in church. If it happened to fall on a Saturday then maybe there was a ward breakfast and that was it.
Pioneer day in the San Francisco bay area involves a gathering at the Hotel Utah and downing a pint or two while commiserating with other ex-mormons about how F$*(ed up the morg is. We usually end up closing the place down...
Last Sunday's bulletin said that there will be a pancake dinner this coming Friday evening. Usually, we have a potluck breakfast or lunch on the back lawn at the church on Saturdays celebrating PD. We aren't going to take the kids this year.
When I was but a wee lad in the 60s, there was the Primary Parade from the brown church to the pharmacy corner and back. It was to celebrate Utah's July 24th. It's been discontinued. One year we all got a Wagon Wheel. That's when they were about 5 inches across. Now they're more the size of a fuckin' Oreo cookie.