Friday, August 14, 2015

Headed to the Prairie Rose!

I am headed to the Prairie Rose Chuckwagon at Benton, KS, to pay tribute to Orin Friesen. He is the manager at this fine establishment and, along with the other Prairie Rose Rangers, is the house band.

Orin is one of the most remarkable people I know. In his fifty years of radio life, he has interviewed everybody who is or was anybody. He is in the process of digitizing those thousands of hours of audio, from Johnny Cash to Roger McGuinn. He recounted (with Bud Norman)many of those interviews and encounters in his book, Goat Glands to Ranch Hands: The KFDI Story.

If you stick around the business, you might do the same. What makes Orin truly different is who he is, not what he is talking about or to whom he is speaking. It is simply him. He is liked and respected by his peers, loved by his family and friends, and he has made a career of doing what he loves. I can think of no greater measures of success.

He also made a heckuva Abraham Lincoln in The Road toValhalla, a documentary by Ken Spurgeon and Lone Chimney Films. (This won the Wrangler Award at the Cowboy Hall of Fame. Orin, with his beautiful wife, Bekki, were there for the ceremony.)

A toast, Orin! Here's to you!