On Sunday, January 17, 2009, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Annual Community Memorial Service was held at the Second Baptist Church. The program offered musical performances, award presentations, and a keynote address by University of Nevada-Reno professor R. Grant Seals, PhD., that told the “real” history of civil rights activism in the United States from the eighteenth century to the present. Bishop Gene Savoy Jr, who served as master of ceremonies at the celebration, was announced to be the successor to the Reverend Onie Cooper as chairman of the Martin Luther King Jr Holiday Committee. At the event, Rev. Cooper publically announced his retirement from the committee, which he founded in 1981, and appointed Bishop Savoy as his successor. 
The event was attended by several members of the Second Advent community, including the Reverend Dr. Bill Bartlett, who delivered the Benediction; Roger Weld; Stephan Fuelling; and Robert Roy, who videotaped and photographed the event.
On the morning of January 18, the new chairperson of the MLK Holiday Committee, Bishop Gene Savoy Jr, was in the lead car in the Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Caravan, driven by the Reverend Robert Petrovich. Second in the caravan was the car that carried the Reverend Onie Cooper, founder of the committee, who had nearly singlehandedly worked to have a portion of US 395 designated as the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Highway. Approximately twenty vehicles participated in the caravan, which paraded over a portion of the MLK Highway, which runs from Bordertown to Mt. Rose Highway on US 395. Prior to the caravan’s departure, Bishop Savoy was interviewed by Channel 2 News, as was Rev. Cooper. That evening, at the 22nd Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dinner sponsored by the Northern Nevada Black Cultural Awareness Society at the Peppermill Resort, Bishop Savoy was invited to present the Goodwill Service Award in his new capacity as chairman of the Northern Nevada Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday Committee.