By JENNA RHUDE
Moapa Valley Progress
To serve up a free dinner to an entire community, even a small town like Moapa Valley, takes the efforts of a lot of people. And directing and coordinating the efforts of all those people this year was the MV Chamber of Commerce President Marjorie Holland.
The community dinner on July 4th has, by long tradition been furnished by the Moapa Valley Chamber of Commerce. Holland has been the president of the Chamber for nearly two years. During that time, she has been key in coordinating the food donations needed and rounding up the volunteer force required to make this banquet a reality.
But Holland doesn’t just sit back and tell everyone else what to do. She is front and center in ever stage of the event preparing food, presenting it and serving it up to the community.
Chamber of Commerce board member Vannette Christensen, an owner of Xtreme Stitch in Overton, describes Holland as a
“quiet force.”
“She is an intelligent and caring person,” Christensen said. “She is very calm, but has the ability to command the respect of the room. Her heart is in serving our community.”
Around 500 people were served at the evening dinner. Chamber members had help from the local 4H organization, headed by 4H coordinator Lacey Sproul, in serving up the food. Over 236 pounds of pork was provided by a joint effort between Simplot Silica and the Chamber.
The meat was prepared by Logandale resident Rik Eide, who owns Great Basin Cooking Company. Rik provided the service of preparing the meat for the dinner as a favor to the Valley for the celebration.
Rik explained that he has a handmade smoker, designed and made by him. On that equipment, he is able to smoke up to 300 pounds of meat at one time. This particular job took 8½ hours to smoke. Applewood was the flavor of choice.
