Soap Lake riding club restarts Lava Run to Sun

SOAP LAKE - The Sons and Daughters of Freedom Riding Club is working to get a motorcycle rally back on the road this summer after it sputtered out last year.

The annual rally was a fixture in the city before differences between city officials and last year's organizer led to its abrupt cancellation.

"Now we're dealing with the aftermath," said riding club president Rodney Stump. "It had been around for quite a few years and was getting to be a pretty big event, but we're kind of having to start again from the ground up."

The city council approved the club's event application in March, when riding club members Mandy Stump and Mark Fountain lined out the plan to hold the revamped "Lava Run to the Sun" July 28 and 29.

"We're anticipating it will be small this year," Fountain told council members at the time, adding there will be no food vendors in order to encourage attendees to patronize the city's existing eateries. Del Red Pub will have a beer garden, and live music. A drag race, a poker run and other activities are planned over the weekend.

"We want to keep it very family-oriented. There will be no (mixed martial arts) fights staged or anything like that," Fountain said. "We're going to try to bring people in and hopefully get the bad taste out of a lot of people's mouths over last year. A lot of people showed up who didn't know it was cancelled and left really angry. We'd like to put Soap Lake back on the map."

Several people at last week's council meeting spoke in support of the club's efforts, including Angela Mccall, of Ephrata, who works at Soap Lake's Del Red Pub.

"The rally is a huge event for this city and I support it 100 percent," she said. "It brings in a lot of money as far as businesses are concerned. Last year I received phone call after phone call at the Del Red asking why we weren't having it, why it fell through. It is a huge event for this city."

Mccall and others questioned why Soap Lake city officials declined to reimburse riding club president Rodney Stump for about $550 spent out of his own pocket on advertising for the event.

Stump said he was initially told he only had to bring in a receipt and he'd be reimbursed, but when he still hadn't received payment after weeks of waiting, he was informed the city couldn't issue a check to an individual.

"When you tell me you're going to reimburse me, I expect to be reimbursed," Stump told the council last week. "I'm pretty sure the whole town wants this rally, I think they kind of need the rally, but I'm ready to shut it down and take it somewhere else. It's kind of up to you guys."

City Finance Director Karen Dillon explained a paper trail has to be established for all tourism grant money.

"The checks need to be cut not to an individual but either to the non profit organization or the event itself," she said. "Those funds are highly audited by the state."

She and others suggested a check could be issued to the riding club and the funds transferred to Stump's own account.

Stump later confirmed he and the city worked out their issues and he was finally reimbursed.

Mayor Raymond Gravelle assured Stump last week that city staff will review event application documents and, if clarifications are needed in the permitting process, the city will make sure they're addressed. Gravelle also noted the motorcycle rally is important to him and other council members, and thanked Stump for spearheading the effort to get it restarted.

"What I am most encouraged about is to see how many motorcyclists have shown up to support Rodney," he said. "That tells me that Rodney has organized a group of people who are ready to take on the many, many tasks that are necessary to put on an event like this."