Help save the Apple Valley Legacy Museum: Benefit concert set for Oct. 3

The Apple Valley Legacy Museum is hoping to continue preserving history for the foreseeable future and is asking the community to help support that mission.

The Mohave Historical Society will be hosting a benefit concert for the Apple Valley Legacy Museum at 5 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 3 to help keep the lights on in the Apple Valley museum, while simultaneously honoring Apple Valley pioneers Roy Rogers and Dale Evans , as well as late country singer Toby Keith, who had ties to the area.

According to founder and museum director Marcella Taylor, Deby Kelley, the cousin of Patsy Cline, will be performing at the event as a guest vocalist, along with local professionals Gary Whiteside and Marina Kranz.

"[The museum] holds great memories," Taylor said. "People come to our museum to relive memories and make new ones. We have people who say, 'We honeymooned here,' or 'My high school reunion was here,' things like that. People love our little museum, and we love it here too, with the desert plants and animals at our beautiful scenic location."

A decade of the museum's legacy

The non-profit High Desert Community Foundation museum is one-of-a-kind and showcases the history of Apple Valley through interactive displays, scrapbooks, news articles, artifacts, and collections.

The 10th anniversary will be celebrated in a few short months in March.

Located at the old Roy Rogers Apple Valley Inn, Bob Hope Cottage #153, the Apple Valley Legacy Museum hosts community events like movie nights, porch sales, bands, skits, narrated historical hayrides, and tours of the Main Inn, and participates in community-wide events like the Happy Trails parade .

Apple Valley Commons shopping center: Retro Bowl property has rich history

The community-forward museum doesn't want to close its doors, expressed Taylor, so the benefit concert thrown by Leo Eiffert, also known as "Swamp Water Fox," will serve as an effort to continue the museum's legacy.

An IEHP Foundation Grant was secured for the next two months, but the hefty overhead is often out of budget for the free admission museum.

Eiffert, an Apple Valley resident and employee of Toby Keith for 23 years, took the opportunity to honor and dedicate the benefit to both Apple Valley icons Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, as well as Toby Keith, the country artist who died earlier this year at age 64.

Keith recorded his first song "Should've Been a Cowboy" at the Roy Rogers Museum in Victorville and filmed the stagecoach scenes of the video at Kemper Campbell Ranch also in Victorville.

How to attend

The museum will open its doors to the public at 5 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 3 at the Historic Apple Valley Inn located at 20602 Highway 18, Cottage #153 to browse the museum, buy a raffle ticket, and meet likeminded locals with a similar affinity for Apple Valley.

The band will start around 6 p.m.

An ongoing raffle will hopefully rack in some funds for the museum, with prizes donated by the Apple Valley Legacy Museum, Victorville Legacy Museum, Friends of the Apple Valley Library, Mohahve Historical Society, Town of Apple Valley, and Happy Trails Children's Foundation.

McKenna Mobley is a Daily Press reporter and can be reached at mmobley@gannett.com .

This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: Help save the Apple Valley Legacy Museum: Benefit concert set for Oct. 3