Music, festivals, rodeo are jampacked into four days

Take your pick. There is something for everyone’s taste from bucking broncs to cowboy poetry to contemporary music beginning Thursday...

The long-weekend’s festivities begin with a contemporary music concert by Curt Collins who should give your spirits a lift.

Collins’ current single, “Another Day,” is the title track of his new CD and it has been in the top 10 on Christian Radio Weekly, according to his promoters. The Nashville singer-songwriter also has been a featured guest artist on national Christian television and has performed on Atlanta Live.

Collins will sing selections from his new CD at 7 p.m. on Thursday at Trinity Baptist Church. The concert will be in the church’s sanctuary and is free and open to the general public. A love offering will be taken during the show.

On Friday, the tempo picks up again with the Tucumcari Heritage Dayze and Centennial Celebration at the Tucumcari Historical Museum.
Events begin at noon on Friday and range from Ed Montana to the Pollen Trail Dancers to “Jack Thorp’s Songs of the Cowboys” by mark Gardner and Rex Rideout.

In the year 1908, Jack Thorp visited P.A. Speckmann at his print shop in Estancia and had him print 2000 copies of his "Songs of the Cowboys,” according to historical reports.

Rideout and Gardner will be performing Thorp’s songs at 6 p.m. on Friday at the museum.
The printing of Thorp’s songs just happens to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the incorporation of Tucumcari as a city being celebrated this year.

On Saturday, the centennial celebration continues with Earl Flint, 98, of San Jon giving his own account of
Quay County’s history. Flint was recently recognized as the only New Deal worker attending a celebration of the 75th anniversary of New Deal programs at Conchas Dam.

A highlight of the centennial celebration will be the recognition of the oldest woman and man who reside in Quay County, according to Bruce Nutt, museum director.

Each of the entrants must register at the front gate by 11:30 a.m. on Saturday and have some indentification that includes their birth year. Quay County’s oldest man and woman will be crowned Tucumcari’s Centennial Pioneers and reign over the centennial year of events.

Another festival will also recognize the area’s pioneers and cowboy ways. That’s the Nara Visa Cowboy Poetry Gathering which will on Friday through Sunday.

See event schedules below:

Nara Visa Cowboy Gathering

Friday
5:30 p.m. - Ice Cream Social
7 p.m. - Evening performance - Poetry and Music
Saturday
7:30 a.m. - Chuckwagon Breakfast, $5
2 p.m. - Matinee performance - Poetry and Music
4 p.m. - Kids Dummy Roping
5:30 p.m. - Chuckwagon Steak Dinner - $8 for steak dinner, $5 for a hamburger
7 p.m. - Live Auction and evening performance - $5 charge. Presentation of Heritage Award.
Sunday
8:30 a.m. - Breakfast

9:30 a.m. - Cowboy Church
All events at the Nara Visa Community Center

Heritage Dayze

Tucumcari Historical Museum

Friday
Noon, 4 p.m. Ed Montana
12:30 p.m. Wild Bill Cathey
1 p.m. Pollen Trail Dancers
2 p.m. Mary Mayfield
3 p.m., 4:30 p.m. Pollen Trail Dancers
6 p.m. Jack Thorp's “Songs of the Cowboys” presented by Mark Gardner & Rex Rideout

Saturday
8 a.m., 11 a.m., 2:30 p.m. , 5:30 p.m., Pollen Trail Dancers
9 a.m., noon, 3:30 p.m. Ed Montana
9:30 a.m., 1:30 p.m., 4:30 p.m. Mariachi Nuevo Sonido
10:30 a.m. Earl Flint
12:30 p.m., 4 p.m. Wild Bill Cathey
1 p.m. Mary Munoz