Cowboys will croon at Casino Star Theater on Friday
By Doug Lowe
Staff writer
12-5-2019
Two popular cowboy headliners, Brenn Hill and Andy Nelson, will be riding into town this Friday evening, Dec. 6, to begin their 2019 Christmas concert in Gunnison’s historic Casino Star Theater at 7 p.m.
The evening’s two entertainers have received top accolades across the country for their mix of original music, tall tales, western commentary and cowboy poetry. A singer and song writer, Brenn Hill grew up in Ogden and is a real-life cowpoke who lives on a ranch in Hooper, a small town originally known as Muskrat Springs, due west of Roy, along with his wife, kids, guitar and horses, when he isn’t off somewhere performing.
Hill has been nominated for and won several Academy of Western Artists and Western Music Association awards. According to Jesse Mullins, in American Cowboy, “Hill occupies an ever-more-prominent position” in the world of western music.
Andy Nelson, a farrier from Pinedale, Wyoming is also an energetic and high-spirited cowboy poet and humorist who regales audiences with his hilarious and insightful about western culture and history. Heard regularly on Manti’s KMTI broadcasts of the CLEAR OUT WEST network—whose call letters are COW (as in mooo!), Nelson travels the cowboy circuit entertaining crowds by telling his stories and reciting his original “pomes.”
Western Horseman Magazine praised Andy in these words, “One of the most dynamic cowboy entertainers today, Nelson’s vivid descriptions, voice inflections and fluid recitation bring his stories to life in listeners’ imaginations.”
Tickets for “Cowpokes for Christmas” tickets are still available—but, reportedly “going fast”—at Rasmussen’s Ace Hardware and G.I.C. in Gunnison, the Sanpete Messenger in Manti and Kopy Katz Printing in Ephraim. Additional tickets can be obtained by calling Diana at 435-979-2798 and/or Lori at 435-979-9235. When the box office at the Casino Star is opening during movie hours, tickets can also be purchased then and there. Suggested donation amounts for admission is $20 for ages 16 and older, and $15 for ages 15 and below. For large families the suggested donation tops out at $50.
Holiday season audiences at the Casino Star will be among the first to enjoy the facility’s new seats (with cup-holders), and its 107-year-old floors that have been sanded and refinished to preserve their original beauty. Come January 13, the Casino Theatre will be turning 108 because its doors first opened on that date in 1913.
