KEARNEY - The idea started with a conversation between former high school classmates.
  "This is a huge project," Cindy Boehler said of the Great Plains Opry, a concert of country music. "This is something we started over three years ago. A combination of events put it on the back burner for awhile because I got really busy with my recording career."
  Now, events have fallen into place, and Boehler is ready to take the stage along with songwriter Alexa Whipple: two bands, The Richards Family and Three 4 All: and Bluegrass artist Steve Ivey at 7:30 p.m. Nov 6 at the Robert M Merryman Performing Arts Center. This is the first of five planned concerts in the series.
  "It started out as a conversation between a high school classmate and myself," Boehler said. "Wouldn't this be a really good thing to bring to this area? Because of my contacts in the Nashville area, I have the ability to bring really high-quality performers in."
  Boehler, who was raised in Axtell, wants to combine the talent from Nashville with area performers to create a series of concerts. She sees the performances as not strictly limited to music.
  "We're patterning it off of a cross between the Grand Ole Opry and the Carol Burnett Show, if that makes sense," she explained. "I'm hoping we're going to grow into this because we want to bring area acts, including comedy."
  Boehler thinks central Nebraska has an extrordinary amount of talent. Some of the musical jam sessions in the area confirm her belief, she said.
  "There's all this untapped wealth of music in this area that we would really like audiences to see," she said. "We'd even like to bring in a choral group. There's so much talent here, and it's virtually untapped."
  "Boehler, recording under the name of Cid Bealer, plans to release her lastest project, "ReCline," at the Nov 6 performance.
  "We were talking about what we wanted to do for a release," she said. "The guys that recorded with me are pretty high-powered. Three of them are in Reba McEntire's band and one is in the Grand Ole Opry band. Steve (Ivey) said,  "Why don't we just bring them all up there, and let's get that Great Plains Opry off the ground."
   With her series of shows, Boehler wants to provide audiences with something special.
   "We want the community to embrace us because we are trying to bring a really solid, a really family oriented show." she said. "We want this to be something you can bring your kids to."     Rick Brown, Kearney Hub