Food, fun, friends, no rain, and surprise! 

The use to be annual La Sal Community cookout on The Mountain was held last Saturday after a two-year absence as is the case with many events of late.  
This was formerly “This Is It” day, aka Pioneer Day, but recent organizers have moved it to later in the summer.  
No matter. It’s still the same fun time in the cool confines high above La Sal. 
With recent rains, it was feared or maybe hoped that we might get rained out. Not so this year.
It turned out to be a perfect and pleasant afternoon and evening. As usual, there was more food than could possibly be eaten.  
Also, there were many old friends and neighbors as well as new friends to be made. There was only one little glitch when those transporting the hot dog and hamburger buns and homemade root beer took the wrong road.
In their defense, they aren’t native to our area and kinda had to flip a mental coin to decide which road to take at the fork. Wrong road!
But they soon discovered their mistake and found the crowd in time for dinner to be served. 
After the eating was completed, the awards portion of the evening commenced. Various folks in our community make suggestions as to who should be honored at this annual event.  
First to be recognized was Juan Del Real. As you may recall, earlier this year a fire started in one of the trailers at the trailer park on Markle Road. It was the first dwelling in a row of other such homes.  
Juan climbed atop his abode which was a mere ten feet away from the trailer that was burning and hosed it down preventing the blaze from progressing to any other structures. Had he not done this, all the trailers in the park might have been lost. He received a nice plaque in commemoration.
Two special lifetime recognition awards were also given to very deserving long-time residents of La Sal. Now, a little secret: word slipped out earlier that day as to who these two were and their names came to my ear.
As it worked out, I was sitting between these two dear friends and could barely keep from jumping up and down and trying to keep my secret. But I did it.
So, when the presentations began, the lady to my right said, “Oh, no, that can’t be me!”  
My response was, “Oh, yes it can.” What fun.
These two special ladies receiving lifetime achievement awards were Roberta “Bobbi” Wilcox Holt and Sunny Redd.
Both were very surprised, but having known these dear ladies for 50 years, I will say unequivocally, the honors were well deserved and well earned. 
Both of these gals came to La Sal many decades ago after marrying local ranchers. They’ve raised families here and contributed much to the community, as well as just being kind and good neighbors.
Bobbi ran the La Sal Post Office for 25 years while helping her family on their ranch.
Sunny raised ten children and contributed to the community and extended family.
Congratulations and well-deserved to two special ladies.
I think I can say a fun evening was had by all. And, as with any La Sal social event, if ya went home hungry, you really had to work at doing that.