Get your inner piggy on at Rotary luncheon

It’s almost time to get your inner piggy on.

That’s right. The Portales Rotary Club’s annual (except for 2020) Chuckwagon Luncheon featuring the best smoked pork chop you’ll ever eat is back, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on April 23.

I’ve got a long history of ducking out on the work involved with this event, even though I’m a long time Rotarian as well as a member and past-president of this club. Yeah, I didn’t really work the event even the year I was president.

This year is going to be different, though. I plan on being there for my fellow Rotarians that Friday.

Let me explain the history a bit. This hallowed event began as a luncheon at New Mexico Ag Expo. By the time I was really able to participate in Rotary again after moving back to Portales, I had taken the executive director’s job at the Roosevelt County Chamber, the organization that put on Ag Expo for 25 years. I had my hands full all over the fairgrounds while my fellow Rotarians worked their tails off serving up to 700 plates each year.

The Chuckwagon Luncheon lived on past Ag Expo and for the first couple of years lined up with another big Chamber event, Heritage Days. After both got canceled last year because of the pandemic, the club went with an April date to get the fundraiser in for the club’s calendar year. That means I have no conflicts this year and very few excuses.

I’ve done lots of different Rotary fundraisers in lots of different communities. We did enchiladas and later spaghetti in Tucumcari. Shrimp boil in Bay City, Texas, and a reverse car raffle in Carbondale, Colo.

The enchilada dinner gave me a deeper appreciation of my mother’s love for her family when she made us sopapillas. Those things are not easy to turn out fast and perfectly. Rolling the enchiladas was not a lot more fun.

The pressure of selling the required number of car raffle tickets to keep from failing was one of the most nerve-wracking events I’ve ever been a part of and it gave Rotary’s 4-Way Test a workout with the membership.

The pork chop lunch is not all that tough. It’s intense for a short time. People always rave over the pork chops because no one goes to the trouble of double smoking a big thick chop at home and you can’t get one like it in a restaurant.

For $12 you’ll get that thick, juicy, mesquite-smoked pork chop, pinto beans, potato salad and a brownie along with a bottle of water. You can hit me up for tickets if you haven’t already bought from Leroy Thomas or Eldin Cooper, the ticket pre-sell kings. You can also get them on-site at Central Christian Church, but it’s best not to leave things to chance of a sell-out.

Even though Roosevelt County is in the turquoise level of health restrictions, we still can’t have on-site dining so you can do carryout or something that Leroy and others perfected years ago - delivery.

Buy the whole office lunch that Friday, then take the rest of the day off if necessary. That’s what I’m doing when I’m through serving up pork perfection.

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

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