Rick Gunn/Nevada Appeal Sourdough Slim belts out a tune at the Carson Rehabilitation Center tuesday during a benefit performance Friday.
Sizzling into the night like an oversize steak cooking over a campfire, the annual Cowboy Jubilee & Poetry fund-raiser for the Carson Tahoe Cancer Center is tonight.
The all-star western bill features singer/songwriter Tom Russell and guitarist Andrew Hardin; lasso laureate from boot-scrapin' bohemia, cowboy poet Pat Richardson; and crowd-pleasing Sourdough Slim, whose yodeling, joke-cracking, and accordion antics have led him to play such unlikely pastures as Carnegie Hall.
The fund-raising rustlers rode into town Friday for a series of benefit performances for the patients of the Carson Rehabilitation Center and Mountain Springs Assisted Living Center.
Today, the troupe gallops into high-gear for the Carson-Tahoe Hospital Auxiliary's 11th Cowboy Jubilee and Poetry festival at the Carson City Community Center.
The event features two shows - a 4 p.m. matinee and an 8 p.m. after sun-down show.
An authentic Western tri-tip barbecue, some 367-pounds of premium meat, donated by the Nevada Beef Council, trimmed to perfection by Bob Butler from Wolfpack Meats and cooked up by galloping gourmets Ralph Marrone and Roger Sayre, will be served from 5-8 p.m.
The event celebrates western values of independence and self-reliance, turning what was once an antidote to the loneliness and isolation of the prairies and plains into full-bar bar-none entertainment, reminiscent of old-time "Wild West" shows.
Chairperson of the Carson-Tahoe Hospital Auxiliary, Delsye Mills, says the event could never go on without the generous help of community businesses including Red's Old 395 Grill for the baked beans, Carl's Blueprint for printing free flyers and specially mounted pieces to be autographed by all the performers and sold at the event, the Northern Nevada Bluegrass Association (who literally play for their dinner), the Plaza Motel for donating lodging for the entertainers for two nights, Miles Brothers Construction for supplying the barbecue used to cook the tri-tip and Waste Management for providing Dumpsters for the event.
"Because of the community and businesses like these we will be able to pay off our $250,000 pledge to help build the new cancer center three years ahead of schedule," says Mills.
n Contact reporter Peter Thompson at pthompson@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1215.