New owners celebrate first anniversary at Basin RV
JOEL MARTIN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 1 year, 3 months AGO
RJ, right, and Teri McFadden have owned Basin RV for a year now, and the changes are visible as soon as you walk in the door.
JOEL MARTIN/COLUMBIA BASIN HERALD
Two technicians work on RVs at Basin RV. Owner RJ McFadden said the business prides itself on being able to turn a vehicle around in less than a week, even during the busiest seasons.
Basin RV offers mobile repair service to campgrounds and home sites throughout the Moses Lake area.
Joel Martin has been with the Columbia Basin Herald for more than 25 years in a variety of roles and is the most-tenured employee in the building. Martin is a married father of eight and enjoys spending time with his children and his wife, Christina. He is passionate about the paper’s mission of informing the people of the Columbia Basin because he knows it is important to record the history of the communities the publication serves. | July 7, 2025 3:00 AM
MOSES LAKE — Basin RV has been under new ownership for a year now, and the owners are getting more involved in the community, sponsoring the Brett Reese Memorial Car Show, the Sand Scorpions Bounty Hole, the Cowboy Breakfast and more.
“We’ve got five kids ourselves,” said owner RJ McFadden. “They all go to school here in town. So camping in our community is kind of our thing, spreading the dollars here.”
RJ and his wife, Teri, both grew up in Moses Lake, they said. RJ owned the Skyline Miniature Golf Course for a while in the 2010s, and most recently operated a mobile RV repair service, Road Trip RV, with a friend. That’s what got him into the RV field, he said. When Basin RV became available, he jumped at it, he said.
The first step was to remodel, McFadden said. The previous owner was — and is; he still works at Basin RV part-time — highly skilled at RV repair, but the business looked like what it was, a repair shop.
Teri did the decoration and organizing, they said.
“It was definitely a facelift on this place,” she said. “You couldn’t even get in the front door when you walked in. The front door was permanently blocked with tires. Now you can actually get in the front door, and that’s a big thing. People still go around to the side, and I’m like, ‘No you can come around the front.’”
“We wanted to … make it look good,” RJ McFadden said. “Now it looks like a business.”
A business, but a very family-oriented one. The McFaddens have five children, from 13 years old down to 3, and there’s a space in the front office set aside for them to play and even take a nap if needed.
“I keep a nice selection of toys and sand and coloring books,” Teri said. “They come down after school. Except the 3-year-old; he stays with me. He’s the greeter. Everybody who comes in loves (him). We had customers who brought us a thank you card and doughnuts and they brought (him) a little stuffed animal because he is so welcoming.”
Basin RV still does mobile RV repair and also sells used RVs. Being a small mom-and-pop operation gives them some flexibility in the repairs they can do, RJ McFadden said.
“We work on everything,” he said. “Every year, every make, every model. A lot of the RV companies are limited in what they can work on, by manufacturer but mostly by the years. They usually only work on 10-years or newer. A lot of people think it’s hard to find old RV parts. Give us a shot. We’ll find that part.”
As Basin RV grows, RJ said he may look for a larger location; the space on Lasco Lane next to SR 17 gets a mite crowded when it’s busy, he said.
“If you stay small long enough, you'll be big soon enough,” he said. “The plan is to grow, with community support … We're camping in our community forever. We're not going anywhere. We're not these big box chains where we're just here to get your money. Your hard-earned money is going to go somewhere good, and you're going to be happy with that experience.”
Two technicians work on RVs at Basin RV. Owner RJ McFadden said the business prides itself on being able to turn a vehicle around in less than a week, even during the busiest seasons.
Basin RV offers mobile repair service to campgrounds and home sites throughout the Moses Lake area.ARTICLES BY JOEL MARTIN
Endless battle
Noxious Weed Control Board works to keep invasive plants under control
MOSES LAKE — Some of the nastiest plants in Grant County were the topic of a class led by Jay Johnson, a consultant with the Grant County Noxious Weed Control Board, Tuesday. The Noxious Weed Control Board, as its name would suggest, is tasked with keeping weeds under control in Grant County. That’s not a small job; the board’s website lists 129 species of noxious weeds that are found around Grant County. A noxious weed is defined as an invasive, non-native plant that threatens agricultural crops, local ecosystems or fish and wildlife habitat, according to the Noxious Weed Control Board. Washington state law requires that these weeds be identified and their spread kept to a minimum, if not completely eradicated. “We’re one of those agencies a lot of people don’t really understand,” Johnson said. “We’re a county office and … our funding is tax-based assessment. When you get your tax bill and you look down at all the expenses that you pay for, there we are.”
BASIN EVENTS: Oct. 16-24
COLUMBIA BASIN — Whether you feel like shopping, crafting, learning or seeing a show, there’s something happening for you this week in the Basin. Oct. 16 ‘My Family (Mi Familia)’ screening Spanning three generations, “My Family (Mi Familia)” is a heartfelt drama that follows the Sánchez family as they build their lives in East Los Angeles. Through love, hardship, triumph, and sacrifice, the film explores the immigrant experience, the strength of family bonds, and the traditions that connect one generation to the next. Lowrider show and taco truck before the screening. Sponsored by Columbia Basin Allied Arts, EDUBS C/S and the Moses Lake Creative District. $12 per person. Doors open at 6 p.m., film begins at 7 p.m. at the Moses Lake Civic Center Auditorium, 401 S. Balsam St. Tickets and info: www.cba-arts.org.
Moses Lake author encourages women to look beyond church culture norms
MOSES LAKE — A Moses Lake author’s book, “A Christian Woman Striving to Live Her Faith in a Man-Controlled World,” takes aim at the role to which many churches relegate the female half of their congregations. “It’s to encourage women in the faith,” Linda Curran said. “A lot of churches say, ‘Teach Sunday school, do this, do that, but don’t (evangelize.)’" In her book, Curran recounts a time when she moved to a new community and joined a church there. She was surprised to learn that, as a new female member, she had been automatically assigned church cleaning duties. When she questioned it, she wrote, she was met with condescension and her objections were brushed aside. In other churches, she said, women who were capable of teaching were relegated to “women’s ministry.”