Holly Hosting Rhythm and Rib Dance in October

Prowers County Courthouse

You can move your feet and get some ribs to eat on October 13 at the Holly Gateway Park with a dinner and music fund-raiser for the Holly Bluegrass Festival.  Marge Creech explained the baby-back rib dinner and dance will replace the traditional Grand Old Opry in Holly this year.  She was speaking to the Prowers Lodging Tax Panel, requesting marketing funds for the six hour event.  Panel members approved the $500 request.  Two bands will provide country-western music the evening of the 13^th.  As this is the first year of the fundraiser, Creech said she couldn’t offer figures on how many people will stay overnight in Holly, but three motel rooms have been booked for out-of-town band members.  She said the fundraising committee hopes to see from 300 to 400 people attend.

 Mary Root of Canyons and Plains, a southeast Colorado tourism promotion organization, formerly SECORHT, told panel members, work is progressing on the information kiosk under construction in Granada, one of the tourist info gateways along Colorado highways.  The Granada Museum is being renovated to host several information kiosks.  The town is contributing $3,000 to the $8,000 project.

Root said SECORHT has received donations this year from several participating towns and counties, listing $150 from Kiowa County, $300 from Bent and $500 from Baca Counties, $1,800 from the Bent County Lodging Board and $5,000 from the La Junta Lodging Board for a total of $7,750.  In years past, the Prowers Lodging Panel had contributed $10,000 annually to finance SECORHT operations and had requested that those communities, in a position to do so, attempt to pledge or donate funding as well. 

Some discussion followed on an advertisement page promoting southeast Colorado in the Colorado Country Life magazine.  Panel members reviewed price breakdowns for various sized ads and discussed what topics should be represented in the ads as well as a possibility of contributing an article to the publication about tourist activities in the six county region.

By Russ Baldwin