Shari McLaws reveals her concept in Moonshot competition.
McLaws, a real estate investor, shared her idea in the Moonshot Rural Arizona Pitch Competition earlier this year. She won the Little Colorado Corridor/Holbrook contest and earned her place among the eight finalists who competed for the statewide prize last month.
“I just love Moonshot,” she said. “I started attending Moonshot educational events three years ago. I was initially looking for more visibility for my project, but the biggest benefit has been being seen as a professional, as a CEO, and being in a room with other people with big goals in the entrepreneurial space.”
McLaws is a champion for Holbrook and is collaborating with local workforce programs to bring job training and jobs to the community. “I would like to capitalize on teaching those beautiful hospitality soft skills to kids who need them right now.”
She has been actively studying the I-40 travel market by opening her land to self-sufficient boondocking RVers. In the last two years, she has served 150 visitors and hopes the Old Trails RV Campground will host a community of tourists and return residents seeking to spend summers in Northern Arizona.
Amenities she plans to offer by next summer include a laundry room, bathrooms and showers, Wi-Fi, walking trails, a gazebo and playground equipment. The completed plan, built out through the next eight years, calls for a total of 150-220 RV spaces, a pool, pickleball courts, a restaurant, gift shop and golf cart rentals for those who want to visit the public golf course half a mile away.
Her dream also includes a dinner theater for murder mysteries and tours to the nearby Petrified Forest National Park and Twin Arrows Navajo Casino Resort.
The inspiration for Old Trails RV Campground came to McLaws with the loss of 45-60 local jobs and tax income for schools, caused by the closing of the coal-fired Cholla Power Plant west of Holbrook, which stopped producing power last March. “I care about the community. In city meetings with APS and others, the conversation always comes back to tourism.”
The campground’s name pays tribute to the National Old Trails Highway, a project in the early 1900s that Route 66 was largely built upon. Like the early travelers who set out to see America on that fabled ribbon of highway, McLaws is charting her own course toward revitalization and discovery.
With the Route 66 Centennial on the horizon, she’s betting that travelers will once again find freedom and friendship along this historic corridor — and a welcome stop in Holbrook. FBN
By Bonnie Stevens, FBN
Photo courtesy of Morgan Boatman: Shari McLaws, one of the Moonshot Rural Arizona Pitch Competition finalists, shared her business concept designed to promote tourism and economic development. The entrepreneurial mother of six is planning to build the Old Trails RV Campground on 150 acres that she owns near Holbrook.
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