Hundreds were lined up around the Carson City Community Center's double gym during dinner at the 9th annual cowboy poetry hospital benefit Saturday. On the front wall the Northern Nevada Bluegrass Association players, donning black hats, picked their strings.
"We did very well this year," said nine-time organizer Delsye Mills. She acts as the emcee, cleans the auditorium between shows and even gathers pens from folks after they fill out their surveys.
After the first of two shows Saturday, she guessed at the net income gathered for the Carson-Tahoe Hospital Auxiliary.
"Off the top of my head I'd say maybe $25,000 or $30,000." All of this year's earnings will go to the new George and Helen Hoffmeier-Litts Cancer Resource Center as part of an auxiliary pledge, she said.
This year's performance started off with master yodeler Sourdough Slim. Audience members impressed by his cascading yodels while two-steppin' and fingering the accordion strapped to his chest were speechless when he did all those things and spun a flat lariat simultaneously.
He praised "Mistress of Ceremonies" Mills as a "wonderful, wonderful blessing to the community."
Slim joked about the sluggish economy. "You think you've got it bad, try supporting a family as an accordion-playing yodeling cowboy."
Later local fiddler Randy Pollard and guitarist-singer John McLain played to standing ovations. In authentic Wrangler jeans, McLain and Pollard played the gamut of songs from Irish tunes like the "There Came an Old Man to My Daddy's Door" jig and a medley of "Home on the Range" and "Red River Valley" during which folks sang along.
While smoke from the barbecuing tri-tip donated by the Nevada Beef Council wafted into the auditorium, the men filled the hall with saucy Latin-style licks.
They had planned to have a new CD out by this time, explained Pollard, but a little thing called Iraq happened. That has meant their third man, guitarist Paul Carelli, has been deployed to fly an F18 off a carrier in the Gulf.
After a beautiful "Ashokan Farewell" --Emade famous by Ken Burns' PBS documentary on the Civil War -- the two played "America the Beautiful" and "God Bless America" joined by standing audience members.
"Because of what's going in the world we really want to support our troops," Pollard explained later.
"Hey, you really made that thing talk," said a gray-haired fan walking by.
"Paul is my best friend in the military... well he's my best friend in the world," he continued. "But it's not just for Paul, it's for all our troops."
"Good show," said another fan walking by, patting Pollard on the back. "Good show."
Meanwhile in the kitchen, hospital volunteer Kim Mason and her daughters Morgan, 13 and Erin, 15, were helping make 25 gallons of cowboy beans donated by Red's Old 395 Grill and huge amounts of salad with romaine donated by Scolari's. The girls' friends Penny Bartlett, 15 and Joanna Dupre, 13, were helping.
Have they ever served so many hundreds of people?
"Uh huh," nodded Joanna with two hand fulls of Caesar salad. "Last year."
"They do a good job," said the hospital's executive chef Claude Goode, slicing tri-tip.
Manning the grill was Ralph Marrone, who retired at the first of the year.
"I'm working here though because it's for the cancer center and that's very important to me and to the community, too," he said.
You Can Help
To make a donation to the new George and Helen Hoffmeier-Litts Cancer Resource Center, call the Cancer Resource Center at 885-4281
