Moapa Valley residents enjoyed another successful Independence Day celebration last week. The day’s festivities were well-organized, family-friendly and appropriately focused on our great country’s founding principles. It wasn’t sophisticated or refined. But it was a genuine small-town celebration; and it was a pleasure.
There are fewer and fewer small communities that bother anymore to put on such a major production for the Fourth. The complexities of doing so in our modern world of red-tape and litigation have increasingly made it impractical. But where such small town celebrations continue to succeed, the key seems to be a continued involvement and support from the community. For such a big event, many hands must make light work; and it truly takes a village to continue the tradition.
This is definitely true in the Moapa Valley. It is sometimes easy for folks to just show up and enjoy these festivities without understanding all of the devoted generosity and committed volunteerism that stands behind them. So we thought it a good time to review some of that and, once again, give credit where it is truly due; though we, sadly and apologetically recognize that we can’t possibly name every single person involved.
This year, as every year, the celebration began with a quiet moment of devotion and patriotism; a simple flagraising ceremony. Our local veterans’ organizations are active during all of the patriotic American holidays throughout the year. They line the main street through town with the red, white and blue on those holidays. Whether it be Veteran’s Day, Memorial Day or July 4th, these veterans always perform an early morning flag ceremony for the community. The ceremony on Independence Day is usually well attended, as it was this year. But the others often only see the veterans and their auxiliaries in attendance (as well as, usually, the local press). Still, these good men and women faithfully perform this important task. It comes as a reminder to the community of patriotism and pride in their country. We owe them our deep respect for their service to country which continues to this day in these simple community ceremonies.
It is rare indeed to see an entire community sitting down to break bread together without money changing hands. But on the Fourth of July, it has become the Moapa Valley tradition to do so, not once, but twice during the holiday.
To start things off, every year, the members of the Moapa Valley Rotary Club get up early and fire up their griddles to provide an ample breakfast to the community free of charge.
Then, in the evening, the Chamber of Commerce sponsors a community dinner; again entirely free. And we aren’t just talking about burgers and dogs here. Rather it is a skillfully prepared pit barbecued feast with all the fixings. This year Commissioner Tom Collins and Swanson Farms are to be thanked for donating the pork for the meal. The Freeman boys along with Oscar Henderson and Larry Thompson spent all day, and the night before, cooking up that meat to perfection. It was a worthy tribute to the Freeman boys’ recently deceased father, Dennis Freeman, who had been providing this community service every year for nearly two decades. We appreciate them for continuing the tradition.
Other local businesses who provided food for these two community meals include Inside Scoop, Lins Marketplace, McDonald’s, Muddy River Grill, Simplot Silica, Sugar’s Restaurant and Tiffany’s Subs.
Both of these major community meals came off perfectly without a hitch. But only with the help of a small army of volunteers from both organizations. There were folks there to set things up, to serve the meals and to clean up afterwards. None of it would be possible without those good people.
A morning of activities were held for both the young and the old in the community. A handful of local businesses sponsored a candy scramble and set up a few games for the kids to play in the morning after breakfast. These included Cal’s Repair Shop, Alsum/Farmers Insurance and Simplot Silica.
The local volunteer firefighters staged their annual water fight to cool off the crowd during the heat of the morning. Finally, the local Metro officers sponsored a watermelon bust to finish off the morning’s activities. All of these folks volunteered their time and resources to provide these things to the celebration.
And what is a July 4th celebration without fireworks? For a small town, the Moapa Valley always puts on a rather impressive fireworks display at the end of the day. And Overton volunteer firefighter Elwin Brown, with his small band of volunteer pyrotechnics from Overton Fire Station 74, came through for us again this year! It was a great show!
Of course, those exploding rockets are pretty expensive these days. Without several thousand dollars in donations from the community, it really wouldn’t be much of a show.
There is, of course, a fairly brisk community fundraising effort every year; selling T-shirts and holding a few springtime events to raise money. Those funds are important and, of course, appreciated. But in the end, the nickle-and-dime kind of fundraising is never enough to fund these fireworks. It takes a lot more money than that.
So every year a couple of businesses in town open the checkbook and contribute the lion’s share of what is needed. They do so quietly and without a lot of fanfare. They certainly deserve special recognition.
The first is the Moapa Valley Telephone Company. No matter what the market conditions have been, the Lyon family at the Telephone company has been willing to be a major bankroll to this community display.
Up until last year, the other major donor was the Moapa Valley Credit Union. But last year, when the MVCU merged with America First Credit Union, the new entity decided to continue that tradition of support. We appreciate this large institution for its decision to zoom in and support our small community traditions.
This corporate conscientiousness and generosity from both the phone company and the credit union should bear a lot of weight with local residents.
Finally we should recognize the committee of community members who coordinate and orchestrate all of these activities. These folks give a huge amount of time and they undergo tremendous stress to throw this community party every year. So we would say thanks to Lori Houston, Jessica Whipple, Karen Alsum, Lois Hall, Becky Phillips, Elwin Brown, Lisa Hanks, Daren Leach, Rick Houston and anyone else who volunteered on the committee. Their efforts have kept this wonderful community tradition alive and well.
