Club serves up interesting fare with dinner presentations

Reford Theobold
Reford Theobold

For people looking to join an organization that offers interesting programs, there’s one group that does so without asking members to join activities that cut into their spare time.

While board members recruit guest speakers, everyone else in the Bookcliff Knife and Fork Club is required only to pay annual dues and for dinners they attend at Two Rivers Convention Center. That’s the extent of the commitment.

“It’s for fun, enjoyment and just socializing,” said Reford Theobold, president of the club.

The Knife and Fork Club offers members more than your usual fare for a program in Grand Junction. Through the years, the speakers have included Newt Gingrich, a one-time prominent member of Congress and potential presidential candidate; network television newsmen

Charles Kuralt and Dan Rather; White House Press Secretary Jody Powell; and Joe Arpaio, the sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz., who gained recognition for arresting illegal immigrants and teaching them skills to obtain jobs in the U.S.

Program content has included the latest in deep sea discoveries, a slide show concerning a trek of hundreds of miles in Alaska and a look inside the culture of Afghanistan.

The next scheduled speaker is comedian and storyteller Bob Welch, who will speak at Two Rivers Feb. 23.

Annual dues for the club are $35. Dinners cost $20 per person for each of the six programs per year. Members pay only for the dinners they attend.

As is the case with service clubs in the Grand Valley, the Knife and Fork Club offers something that online social networking can’t. “The experience is still there,” Theobold said. “It’s just like people still go to football games even though they’re on TV.”
The program nights offer social interaction with other club members, but also offer a chance to meet the speakers and ask questions face-to-face.

“It’s fun. It’s educational. You learn things,” Theobold said.

And, like other organizations in the Grand Valley, the Knife and Fork Club could use more members. Learn more by calling Theobold at 245-0563 or logging on to www.reford.org.