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Series of cowboy music shows to benefit child ID program

Margaret Hair

Courtesy Photo

If you go

What: Dave Moran’s Rocky Mountain Campfire Show

When: Doors open at 6 p.m., and music starts at 7 p.m. Thursdays through Feb. 18

Where: Masonic Lodge, at Lincoln Avenue and Eighth Street above Wild Horse Gallery

Cost: $10 for adults and $5 for children; proceeds benefit the Grand Lodge of Colorado’s Child ID Program

For more information: To learn more about the Elk Mountain Lodge and Masonic efforts with its child identification program, go to http://www.coloradofreemasons.org.

If you go

What: Dave Moran’s Rocky Mountain Campfire Show

When: Doors open at 6 p.m., and music starts at 7 p.m. Thursdays through Feb. 18

Where: Masonic Lodge, at Lincoln Avenue and Eighth Street above Wild Horse Gallery



Cost: $10 for adults and $5 for children; proceeds benefit the Grand Lodge of Colorado’s Child ID Program

For more information: To learn more about the Elk Mountain Lodge and Masonic efforts with its child identification program, go to http://www.coloradofreemasons.org.



— Before musician and storyteller Dave Moran landed in the Yampa Valley, he was traveling across the country and abroad, playing music and collecting stories.

He worked guest ranches and festivals. He played on cruise ships in Alaska, trains by the Grand Canyon and riverboats on the Mississippi. He performed “all over the doggone place,” until one winter in the early 1980s, when he decided to find a Colorado ski resort that would give him a gig for the season.

“I was headed up (Interstate) 70 and I picked up a hitchhiker and said, ‘Where are you going?’ and he said, ‘I’m going to Steamboat Springs,’” Moran said. The musician had been through the area before, and he decided to give it another go.

“I said, ‘Well, I’ll take you.’ And that’s the end of the story,” he said.

On Thursday, Moran will revive the Rocky Mountain Campfire Show he’s performed frequently in his years as an ever-present voice of the valley. The presentation comes complete with Western-style songs about local history and lore, cowboy poetry, corny jokes and a theatrical campfire.

“It’s a professional, theatrical campfire, and it looks pretty real, like you could burn your hand on it,” Moran said about his key prop.

A self-described history buff, the South Routt-based Moran plans to cater to the audience in each of seven campfire performances at 7 p.m. Thursdays through Feb. 18 at the Masonic Lodge. The headquarters for the local Elk Mountain Lodge is at Lincoln Avenue and Eighth Street, above Wild Horse Gallery. Tickets to the concerts are $10 for adults and $5 for children.

Proceeds from Moran’s acoustic shows will go toward The Grand Lodge of Colorado’s Child Identification Program, or “kIDs” program. The goal of the program is to set up events where parents can bring their children to have digital fingerprints and photographs taken. That information is given to the parent to keep, and the program’s copies of the information are destroyed.

In the case of an emergency, specifically if a child who has been through the program is abducted or is missing, the parents’ copies of the information can be used to find the child more effectively, Moran said.

“They can go to this document file and give it to the authorities, and then they can have an Amber Alert out within minutes as opposed to hours,” he said. The Elk Mountain Lodge has offered the statewide program at local events in the past and hopes to collect money to buy its own equipment to continue its efforts.

In addition to collecting ticket receipts, the club also will sell refreshments and copies of The Steamboat Coloring Book at the campfire music series.

Megan Morgan, who illustrated The Steamboat Coloring Book, said sponsors helped to print 100 special edition copies to benefit the child identification program. Those coloring books will be priced the same as they are at local retailers, at about $10, she said. All proceeds from the coloring books will go toward the “kIDs” program, she said.


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