La Sal honors Citizens of the Year

Years ago, an old timer here used to refer to Pioneer Day as This Is It Day.  It was a mis-quote of Brigham Young’s statement upon first seeing the Salt Lake Valley, “This is the place”.
Well, whatever you call it, La Sal had a very successful celebration of Pioneer Day again this year.
The tradition is a community cookout on The Mountain.  The main feature is, of course, the food.  There was plenty of that.  The man in charge of the event, Hal Adams, got things underway right at 6 p.m.  Lest you think that La Sal Standard Time was not a factor that night, folks kept trailing in for another hour and a half.  They did come bearing food at least.
The first order of business was the presentation of the Citizen of the Year awards.
Honored first is everyone’s friend, Danny McGee.  Hal had to fib a little to get Danny to attend, telling him they needed a representative from the local fire department to come to the community celebration.  Now Hal is a local clergyman and you expect them always to tell the truth,  but we’ll forgive him this time.
Danny is about the friendliest guy in town.  He is everyone’s friend. Not only has  he never met a stranger, but everyone he meets is instantly a friend.  
Besides  serving on the fire department, he is on hand whenever anyone needs a help.  
Of late, he has established a fine men’s choir, taking ordinary men and make sweet harmony.  Congrats to our friend.
The second Citizen of the Year Award goes to Kristl Johnson nee Blankenagel.  She too volunteers at the local fire department.  But she also has her hand in about every other activity in  our community.  
She heads up the local recreation board, which is in charge of the community center. She is also the local LDS Relief Society President and again is a friend to all.  I think she knows about everyone in town.  This last year she established the weekly “Teen Night”. 
There are quite a few teens in our village and rather than have them run the streets every night, one night a week they meet for activities.  
Some are fun like a recent river trip and skating night, complete with twinkling lights like a skating rink.  Some are instructive nights, like money management or  basic cooking skills and there are some service projects like pulling weeds at  the community center.  Again a well deserved award.
Then the eating commenced.  Lots of folks turned up early so there was a lot of visiting before chow time.  You know what I always say about social events in La Sal about meeting old and new friends and going home hungry.  This night was exceptional.         
There was more food than usual.  It was enough to feed a small nation.  We could have eaten for a week on the food left over.  A goodly crowd attended and I will say there were more people I do not know than those I know.  So if you did not make a few new friends that night, you had to be pretty busy eating or wool gathering.  And, if you went home hungry....
Yes ‘twas a grand night with all that makes a La Sal social event so much fun.  Besides, the venue was perfect.  I mean you can’t go wrong when you have a cookout on The Mountain.