The Cowboy Culture Fair is a program designed by educational professionals and implemented, presented, and managed by educational professionals. Cowboy Culture Fair seeks to:

• Present Western and cowboy heritage to students through music, film, and storytelling, utilizing a variety of educational skills that reinforce the state educational standards and benchmarks.
• Provide a one-day educational event that involves a large number of children (multiple classes in one school or multiple schools in one community)

Cowboy Culture Fair gives children exposure to a variety of qualified presenters in short workshops that are set up on a rotation. The event is started off with a 45 minute cowboy concert.

Circuit Riders bring with them the other presenters. The workshops can be any four of the following, depending on troupe member availability:

• Roy Rogers Matinee: For large groups (over 160) half of the students are rotated through the four workshops and the other half are treated to a Roy Rogers Matinee, a selected Roy Rogers movie on DVD (equipment provided by the school) starring Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, Gabby Hayes, and the Sons of the Pioneers. Background information is given regarding the era of the production and the popularity of the singing cowboys as heroes to the kids. The facilitator may pause the movie at certain points to ask comprehensive questions. The groups will switch to allow the matinee students to take in the workshops and the workshop students to see the movie.


• Songs of the Overland Trail: What songs did the pioneers sing during their long trek west across the Great Plains and the Rockies? What instruments did they play? This workshop explores those questions with music, demonstration of the instruments that would have been used, and exciting excerpts read from the diary of Cathrine Haun, 1849.


• Writing a Cowboy Song: The old traditional Cowboy song "The Old Chisholm Trail," with it's simple two-line couplet verse, had dozens of verses composed by cowboys while they did their work. In the same tradition, children will compose a verse they can sing to the tune. They work with theme, rhyme, and meter, learning some important elements about poetry in the process.


• Yodeling: The tradition of yodeling in cowboy music is explored and demonstrated in this fun session. The students may even leave doing some yodel-ay-ee-hooing of their own.


• Stories Around the Campfire: Storytelling was once the most common form of entertainment, but is getting lost in today's era of TV and video. The students will listen to a cowboy poet/storyteller relate amusing anecdotes of people living on the land and working with stock.


• Cowboy Heroes in the Movies: The children of the 1930's and 1940's had their movie heroes, many of them being Silver Screen Cowboys who exemplified positive character traits.This workshop includes moderated video featuring clips of Gene Autry and Roy Rogers.


• Where Did Cowboys Get Their Songs?: Men working with cattle faced long boring days and weary nights riding night guard and singing to the cattle. They sang songs they knew and many times changed words to sing about their work or experiences. Some tunes came from England, Ireland and Scotland.


• A Cowboy's Clothing and Gear: From hats to boots and everything in between, the cowboys clothing was more than a fashion statement, it had purpose (and still does today). Children will see the real items and find out how they are used.
  

Sharon and Kate have researched the educational standards and benchmarks established in a number of states and have designed the educational  programs offered  to help  teachers meet those requirements. Please contact  Circuit Riders for a more comprehensive information packet to see how these programs can fit your needs.