News & Press Releases

Great Plains Opry Review

Monday, November 15th, 2010 - 01:11am

Saturday night I was fortunate enough to attend a show in Kearney of true national quality. The premier event featured a diverse group of artists that I believe would rival anything you might see in Branson or even Nashville and it was held in Kearney's own Merryman Performing Arts Center.
Just to have a venue like Merrymans' this close to home is a treasure. I've been going to shows and concerts for more years than I care to admit and I'm sure somewhere along the way I've been treated to a better value for the price of my ticket but I really couldn't tell you when.
Cid Bealer produced the show and performed with some of Nashville's top musicians including Reba McEntire's drummer and keyboard player, the lead guitarist from The Grand Ole Opry and Mr. Steve Ivey of IMI records of Nashville. These folks flew into Kearney just for this event and I hope their sacrifice of both time and sleep was so greatly appreciated.
But it didn't stop there. Locally, Curtis, Michael and Cid's band, "Three 4 All", provided their own brand of three part harmony with a healthy dose of comedy.
The Richards Family from Holdrege added a great deal with their young daughter, a fiddle playing phoneme. To call her gifted is a real understatement. Of coarse I would hate to take away from the other dozen or so members of the Richards family. Great performance!
Alexa Whipple is a fifteen year old from Arapaho that I truly believe the country music industry is going to hear a lot from very soon. She just returned from a studio session in Branson, MO. Fifteen years old and already promoting her second CD.
After the show and photo ops the patrons of Copperfeilds were treated to an encore performance from Cid, both solo and duet with her brother Stan. A night I will remember for many years to come.
This is just the first in a series of "Great Plains Opry" events scheduled in the upcoming months. All to be held right here in your own backyard.
Please support efforts like this. It's taken years to get people willing to risk so much to bring you the opportunity to see such entertainment without driving hundreds of miles.
Kevin Ericson
Axtell, NE.

New Series Features Country Voices Of Near, Far

Monday, November 1st, 2010 - 11:11pm

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