By Mike Donahue

Moapa Valley Progress

An army of local entrepreneurs have swept Moapa Valley from top to bottom the past few weeks picking thousands of pounds of ripe pomegranates and turning them into luscious juices, jellies and syrups for the 16th Annual Pomegranate Arts and Crafts Festival this weekend.

The festival, hosted annually by the Moapa Valley Art Guild, is Friday and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Clark County Fairgrounds.

From modest beginnings, the festival has grown into an event that helps put Moapa Valley on the map. It attracts people from all over the west, said Jackie Worthen, art guild president.

“This year we have artists, artisans and crafters from all over selling items at the fair,” Worthen said. “We have 75 vendors selling goods including paintings, drawings, decorated gourds, emu eggs and saws. We also have jewelry, crocheted and knitted items, woodcrafts, and etched and blown glass items.”

She said there are six food vendors preparing and selling a variety of offerings including Mexican food, ground sirloin burgers, polish sausages, funnel cakes, corn dogs and roasted corn and potatoes. And of course there are all kinds of pomegranates preparations.

There will be a host of booths of local families selling many different homemade varieties of jelly. In addition to Alligator Jelly and Bam Jam, Cheryl Rawson and family also make and sell pomegranate syrup that can make a Sunday breakfast a memorable event.

Native only to the Iranian Plateau, the pomegranate is a deciduous shrub that loves the warm sandy soils of Moapa Valley. It was cultivated throughout semi arid areas of Asia for thousands of years including Pakistan, Armenia, India, Israel, Afghanistan and other areas – before beginning its circuitous trip around the globe from the Middle East to Moapa Valley. Before reaching Nevada, it was introduced by the Spanish into Latin and finally California 1769.

Mormon pioneers are believed to have planted pomegranates throughout Moapa Valley in the mid to late 1800s in fields, ditch lines, backyards – anywhere they could get water to the plants on a regular basis, Cheryl Rawson said.

Today, the verdant tall shrubs and trees covered with plump ornament-like red fruit dot the valley from one end to the other. As they ripen, the pomegranates attract Gambel’s quail and a host of other birds eager to share the fruit including some with two arms who often indiscriminately pick them illegally from trees owned by others.

Art guild representatives, the Rawson family and others who plan booths at the festival all met, weeks in advance, at the community kitchen at the fairgrounds to prepare their products.

Glen Rawson made a stainless steel juicer that he makes available to anyone for half the juice produced from their fruit. It generally takes a five-gallon bucket of pomegranates to make one gallon of juice.

This year there will be fresh fruit for sale as well as hundreds of cases of jelly and other pomegranate based products at the festival.

The Rawson booth offers festival-goers a special treat – scones with powdered sugar, pomegranate jelly or pomegranate syrup – or all three toppings for those with a sweet tooth.

Pomegranates have some exceptional health benefits. They are proven cancer fighters. Additionally, antioxidants in the fruit and juice lower blood pressure, fight high cholesterol, promote cardiovascular health and more.

Worthen said visitors are asked to leave pets at home unless they are service animals.

The Southern Nevada Agency Partnership (SNAP) plans to unveil its new mobile exhibit during this year’s pomegranate festival, according to Daniel Balduini, spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The 36-foot RV mobile exhibit is SNAP’s newest tool for informing the public about the abundance of recreational options on southern Nevada’s public lands and how to responsibly enjoy these natural resources, he said. The free exhibit will be open Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., he said.

SNAP is a partnership comprised of professionals from the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Forest Service.