Featured Event
Homecoming Hits the Red Dog Saloon
All across the Morongo Basin this week, grown adults will be standing in front of their closet trying to work out what "western semi-formal" means. That's the dress code for Homecoming at Red Dog this Saturday night, and it's a good problem to have. The pressed pearl snaps. The good hat. Boots that have met polish sometime this decade. A bolo if you own one, a corsage if you dare.
The night runs in two halves, and the organizers already wrote the best line about it: come to boot, stay to bump. From 8pm til 10pm, DJ Buck Mild runs the floor the way he does on Saturdays at the Red Dog, which means line dancing in a saloon that was built for the movies. At 10pm the saloon turns into a 90s prom. Somebody gets crowned homecoming king. Somebody gets crowned queen. The party goes till late.
There's a live auction, too, and a photobooth, which is where you'll be encourage to donate a few bucks to a great cause.
When
Saturday, October 17, from 8 p.m. till late
Western dancing
DJ Buck Mild, 8 to 10 p.m.
90s prom
From 10 p.m., with the crowning of a homecoming king and queen
Also
Live auction and photobooth
Dress
Western semi-formal encouraged
Suggested donation
$30 per person
Proceeds
School-board campaigns of Vadim Altschuler (Area 1) and Juan Carlos Pineiro (Area 5), per the organizers
Where
The Red Dog Saloon, 53539 Mane Street, Pioneertown
Where the thirty dollars goes
The organizers ask a suggested donation of $30 a person, and the money is the other half of the story. Homecoming is a campaign fundraiser. The organizers say every dollar raised Saturday goes to two candidates for the Morongo Unified school board, Vadim Altschuler in Trustee Area 1 and Juan Carlos Pineiro in Area 5, and they say both are running to keep Morongo schools open.
That fight is close to home. Morongo Unified has spent this year weighing whether to close some of its elementary campuses, and the scenarios the board studied in August put Landers, Palm Vista and Morongo Valley on the table, one at a time or all three. Altschuler was among the parents pressing the district to show its net savings, school by school, before closing anything. The Area 1 race is for a two-year term with three names on the ballot, the board's appointed incumbent among them. Area 5 is a four-year seat. Election Day is November 3.
Thirty dollars buys a night on the dance floor and a contribution to two campaigns. Walk in knowing it's both.
Then shine the boots and practice the wave. Somebody's going home in a crown.