Holley Hollenshead’s 78th birthday celebrated with a cookout on Holly Ridge Ranch

“A river runs through it,” so says the title of the movie.
Well, the Red River does indeed run through Holley Hollenshead’s Holly Ridge Ranch in far north Bossier Parish, near Plaining Dealing, and on March 21, he held his 78th birthday cookout close to its banks. With its hilly landscape and the Colorado-inspired house on a  cliff-like rise in the land, it does bring to mind a Colorado spread.
Pals who RSVP’ed rambled around outside on a coolish  March 21 to wish Hollenshead “Happy 78th.”
And chow down on Chefs Juan Rios and Magus Flores’ grilled shrimp, to-die-for salmon steaks, beef steaks, bell pepper chunks,  mushrooms and potatoes, slathered with butter, topped with Rios’ vinegary chimithuri sauce. To finish off the menu, avocado salad and Hollenshead’s birthday cake topped with sugary blue roses. Well Known Chef Eddie Marrs, ending his first week as executive sou chef at the Shreveport Club, working under Executive Chef Ralph Edmonds, said he was at this soiree to give technical advice!
“If you translate Juan Rios, it means ‘John Rivers,” quipped Rios, a jolly chef, who  handed us our plates with a great laugh.
It was good to  catch up  with former Caddo and DeSoto Parishes School Superintendent Walter Lee. We both remembered that he was Caddo finance director when I was a young reporter covering the Caddo Board during school integration days in the 1960s.
Speaking of fab food, guest Ron Day reminded me of the days long gone when Ruth Johnson prepared fabulous meals on her stove in a very small house on Highway 2. The house still stands there almost  in the middle of a cotton field, and both of us spotted it on our way to The Ranch. Anyone traveling on Highway 2 and sees it is reminded of those meals.  Fans filled Ruth’s at lunch, so you had to go early to get in. Day  worked for the state in a job involved with pipeline safety and brought out-of-towners to Ruth’s for a  lunch. There was no menu, but the offerings  might include fried chicken  with fresh veggies prepared the way all our Southern moms served them.
To end the celebration at The Ranch, invitees were offered a 20-minute hayride tour of the property.
 Among those seeing and being seen: Caddo Dist. Atty. James Stewart,  Bob and JoAnna Robinson, Linc and Mary Frances Coleman, former Shreveport City Councilman Oliver Jenkins and wife Anne, Brud and Catherine Sturgis, Andrew Mitchell, Don Fritz, Hall Oden, (Shreveport) Times Columnist Joe white and wife Barbara White, Barzanna White, Diana Wilson, Robert and Kelli Aiello, Tobie Morvan, Bill Robertson, Jerry and Genie Carter, and Pat and Karen Boggs.
To Holley, we say: What a cool way to turn 78!