New York City’s Carnegie Hall isn’t the usual setting for a cowboy band, even a great one. But on May 30 Orin Friesen ’69 and his group, The Prairie Rose Wranglers, wowed the audience with some cowboy culture.
The show, “The Great American Cowboy in Concert,” made history as the first performance of its kind at the famous venue.
“Friday night at Carnegie Hall is a pretty big deal,” Friesen says, noting that in addition to a review in The Wall Street Journal, standing ovations and a full house, “having David Letterman in the audience is kind of neat.”
Friesen, who earned a bachelor’s degree in speech from WSU, works as a radio announcer at Wichita-based KFDI and is the operations manager for the Prairie Rose Chuckwagon Supper, a working cattle ranch near Benton, Kan., which invites visitors to drop in and enjoy western food and entertainment. But music — cowboy music — has always been his passion. “I fell in love with Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and The Sons of the Pioneers,” he says.
In August The Prairie Rose Wranglers returned to Carnegie Hall; they’re scheduled to perform on a Carnival cowboy cruise early in 2004, and in 2005 they’ll visit China and sing at the Great Wall as part of a 10-day trip organized by the U.S. State Department.
“I’ve gotten to do so many things over the years,” Friesen says, “more than I ever imagined.”
