“BRANSON, Mo. — It wasn’t Shelly Ginhorn’s first time at Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede.
“I come a couple of times a year,” the 30-year-old Branson resident said as she ripped the leg off a small roasted chicken. “It’s just fun. They try to make it the best experience for the audience. It’s good food and I don’t mind eating with my fingers.”
A couple of seats down the row, Gretchen Webb clapped and cheered as trick riders circled the 1,100-seat arena on horseback.
“There’s nothing else like it anywhere,” the former Stampede performer said. “There is so much entertainment and it’s the best value out there. You get a meal and two shows.”
For eight seasons, Webb, 28, entertained crowds riding and dancing in the show, which pays tribute to America ’s Southern and Western culture and traditions. Webb, who is occasionally called back to saddle up and fill in, said she loves the spectacle of the main show and the charm of the Carriage Room preshow.
“I loved working here,” Webb said. “It’s a lot of hard work, but it’s so fun working with the animals. You never know what they are going to do.”
When Brian Louderbaugh, production manager for Branson’s Dixie Stampede, hears that kind of high praise — even from a former employee — he knows his job is done.
“We have a blast,” he said. “I still miss performing, but the great part is working with the young performers and the audience. That is really a reward for me.”

The Final musical number at Branson's Dixie Stampede.

Louderbaugh started at Dixie as a performer in 1995. He learned how to trick ride, worked his way up the ranks and has managed the production for nine seasons. He oversees the animals’ training and care; performers, technical issues and pre-show.
With additional shows scheduled for Branson’s spring break weeks, the 2011 Dixie Stampede show includes a buffalo stampede, a heard of Texas longhorns, a Native American aerial act, 32 riders on horseback, a wagon train, some homespun comedy and a “friendly competition” between The North and The South.
Laced between Dixie’s take on the Antebellum South is a tribute to the grass grazing giants that roamed the American West.
“I feel like (the buffalo) are going to be a big draw for us this year,” Louderbaugh said. “We had them back in ‘04 and it really was big. People don’t usually get to be that close to buffalo.”
While the buffalo impress show goers, the production’s herd of longhorn cattle takes the audience aback, too. The original plan was to put the longhorn out to pasture for the 2011 season. A last minute decision kept the herd in Dixie’s coral.
“They give everybody an idea of what it would have been like back in the Old West,” he said. “I felt like it was a part of the show that we couldn’t afford to take out.”
Lauderbaugh said he’s pleased with the way this seasons “Into the West” musical production number has taken shape. The show features American Indians, cowboys, buffalo and longhorns in a 13-minute number that “really gets the audiences going,” Lauderbaugh said.
“They see the wagon train comes in with whips cracking and trick ropes spinning and fire blowing,” he said. “Add in horses, great performers with a great number, and you are really just going to shoot through the roof.”
While Dixie Stampede has something for the entire family to enjoy, it may appeal to young people most.
“It’s a great chance for kids to come in and act up,” he explained. “Kids can be rowdy and have fun and the parents don’t have to get on to them. That’s what we want and encourage. Kids can be kids. Even adults can be kids.””

The Buffalo thunder through Branson's Dixie Stampede.

I spent a few days in Branson last week, caught a couple of shows and checked out the spring line-up. I’d hoped for a 75-degree day boating on Table Rock and lounging in the sun, but February had another plan. My first morning in town was cold, wet, windy, rainy and 35 degrees — defiantly not pontoon boat and bikini weather.
Looking for a warn, dry and climate controlled attraction in which to while away a few hours, I stopped in at Branson’s IMAX Entertainment Complex, checked out the show schedule and picked up a couple of tickets.
I’d never been to an IMAX theatre and really didn’t know what to expect. The theatre’s offerings surprised me — in a History Channel sort of way — and it was hard to decide what to see. I opted for tickets to “Lewis & Clark: Great Journey West,” and “Hubble: In Deep Space with Astronauts.” All of the IMAX shows run around an hour, so I figured I see “Lewis & Clark,” grab a bite in the complex at McFarlain’s Restaurant and do “Hubble” after lunch.
The theatre’s line up also includes “Ozarks Legacy and Legend,” “Alaska: Spirit of the Wild” and “ Australia: Land beyond Time,” all hour-long, big screen — and, I do mean “big screen” — productions.
The IMAX screen stands six stories tall and 83 feet wide. The theater’s 12,000-watt, 44-speaker, digital sound system shook the theatre’s seats — and my kidneys — at several points during the features. Jim Stafford, Branson’s long-loved funnyman, introduced each movie and put the theatre’s digital sound and lighting system through its paces before each performance began.
My first feature, a National Geographic produced documentary detailed Lewis and Clark ’s two and a half year journey across the untamed American west. It was great. Educational and entertaining, the soaring camera shots and 80-plus foot wide panoramas reminded of the America’s beauty. I wasn’t the only one in the theatre who was wowed.
“We love it,” Daisy Ogden, a Huntsville, Ark. , resident told me after watching the Lewis and Clark feature. “We’ve been season pass holders for years. We come and spend the whole day watching movies.” Dester, Daisy’s husband and a former NASA engineer, chimed in.
“Some of the movies are so patriotic,” he said. “It makes you feel good about being American.”
After talking with the Ogdens a few minutes, I settled in at McFarlain’s Restaurant for a quick bite before “Hubble.”
Soon after I sat down my server brought out a big hunk of cornbread and I ordered lunch. The food at McFarlain’s was outstanding. Not to dwell on the corn bread, but it was the best I’ve every had — Sorry grandma. Fat and happy, I wandered back over to the IMAX theatre just as the “Ozarks Legends and Legacy” show ended. I stopped a couple exiting the show and asked them for a review.
“It is tremendous,” Coleen Savage, a Branson native, told me. “It’s like a movie of steroids. It makes you feel like you are there.”
Thomas, Coleen’s husband, said he loved the Ozarks history and stunning photography, but the technology behind the IMAX experience fascinated him.
“The story is good, but the way it’s shown in special. The technology is amazing,” Thomas said.
The theater also offers first run Hollywood films nightly.
I settled into my seat for a trip into space to learn more about the Hubble Space Telescope. The movie detailed the launch and multiple repairs to NASA’s high tech galactic spyglass and offered a look deep into space and back in time to the beginnings of the universe. The space shuttle crews operated the cameras and documented the Hubble missions.
“It’s phenomenal,” Exie Barber, a vacationer from Ellsworth, Kan., said. “The seating is perfect.”
“It’s very informational,” Pam, his wife, added. “With the rain it’s a good place to spend the day. We come a lot in the winter. When we come to Branson, we always do the IMAX.”

Want to go?
Branson IMAX Entertainment Complex
3562 Shepherd of the Hills Expressway
Call (417) 335-4832 or go to www.bransonimax.com
for ticket information and showtimes

A dozen acts, one stage
I’ve never been to Branson’s “Big Show,” but it sounds like a great opportunity to catch a dozen or so acts, all for the price of a single ticket. That’s value. It’s a chance to check out some shows and decide which shows I want to catch this year.
The League of Branson Theater Owners and Show Producers use funds raised from the “Big Show” to promote Branson entertainment and tourism around the country. Even though raising funds to promote Branson is serious business for Cindy, she said the “Big Show” is nothing but fun.
“People will hear some absolutely amazing music,” she said. “I believe the Hughes Brothers are bringing the entire family, which is about 45 people. We have Pierce Arrow, which is always a crowd favorite and Legends in Concert is going to be showing off some of their new acts, like Aretha Franklin. The Grand Country shows will be there with Grand Jubilee and Comedy Jamboree.”
The fast-paced show is full of surprises, Cindy said.
“It’s a little looser show because we’re not on our own stages,” she said, laughing. “That always leads to interesting things, but the stars still feel really comfortable, like a lot of the people in the audience are their friends and neighbors.”
Cindy assured me that folks who come down for the “Big Show” will get their money’s worth.
“It really moves fast,” she said. “That way you get a lot of stuff packed into about two and a half hours. People look forward to it.”
Baldknobbers’ veteran Bob Leftridge emcees the evening and keeps the show moving.
“Bob is one of the funniest and best guys in town,” she said. “He’s hilarious and he’s a definite Branson favorite.”

Joplin connection
As long as Cindy said she could remember, the “Big Show” has attracted Joplin residents with cabin fever looking to shake the winter blues.
“Since the very beginning, we have always had a big group come from Joplin. They were here from the beginning and come back every single year. They are good neighbors and, as I said, we’ve always had support out of Joplin.”
Talking to Cindy, I realized that Joplin and Branson have something in common: Ozarks hospitality.
“Branson has this amazing small town friendliness that welcomes people,” she said. “One of the lines Jim Stafford uses is ‘It’s Americas ’ favorite hometown,’ which I really like.”
It’s that hometown feel Cindy said keeps visitors coming back to Branson.
“I like the visitors,” she said. “Think about it. They are all here enjoying themselves. It’s not like they are obligated to be here or that it’s a hassle. They are happy to be here and they like us. They like our community, so it makes for a great experience.”

BRANSON, Mo. — Jason Hughes and his four performing brothers come by their love of music and entertaining naturally.
“My dad was a great singer and played the accordion and guitar by ear, and my mother was quite an accomplished clarinetist,” the 39-year-old father of seven said. “My mother and father loved to sing and play. They didn’t do it for a living; they just really enjoyed it a lot.”
As children, the Hughes brothers’ parents encouraged their boys to learn musical instruments, unafraid of a percussive clan.
“They kept a box full of rhythm instruments in the closet and would pass them out to all of us when we were just little,” he said. “We would play the (wooden) block and the triangle. It was a noisy household.”
In the Hughes family, they learned to love entertaining at an early age.
“People would ask us to sing for this or that,” Hughes said. “Somebody would see us singing together and ask us to do something else.”
Eventually, Mom and Dad Hughes stepped off stage and moved behind the scenes, leaving the performing to their talented boys. That was 30 years ago.
Today, the five performing brothers, their wives, dozens of kids and four adopted siblings — more than 40 in all and growing all of the time — bill them selves as “ America ’s Largest Performing Family.” The fertile Branson brood entertains visitors at The Hughes Brothers Theater through Dec. 18 with a special Christmas show and the promise of another new offering next year.

Small breaks
“When we were kids, it was just one gig after another gig. It just got bigger all of the time,” he said. “We stepped up to the opportunities. I don’t think we ever did have a big break. It was just a series of steps and smaller breaks.”
Small steps or not, the boy band from Taylorsville, Utah, got its break. It led them to Branson.
“People were always telling us we should go to Branson,” Hughes said. “We didn’t know much about Branson, but people told us we would be the perfect show.”
The Hughes family won a talent contest in Las Vegas and earned a recording contract in Nashville. They decided to give Branson a look — and an audition — along the way.
They liked what they saw. The Hughes Brothers landed a gig at Silver Dollar City. Soon, Merle Osmond liked what he saw and offered the guys a chance to fill in for his family when the Osmond Brothers were out of town. One gig led to another and, eventually, they landed in their own theater and produced their own shows.
“Then our wives started to perform with us and then we added more variety in the show as kids joined in,” Hughes said. “To us it was just the logical thing that they would be involved. I don’t know that we actually ever made that conscious decision. It just happened.”

Family affair
It all started when Hughes’ brother Marty’s 2-year-old daughter jumped up on the stage one day at Silver Dollar City while her dad and uncles were performing.
“She started to wiggle and dance to the music the audience went nuts,” the proud uncle said. “She knew that it was for her and then she did it every day.”
Hughes laughed when asked if he knew their kids steal the show.
“There’s no doubt,” he said. “When we first started it wasn’t what we expected. It was kind like what happened with us and our parents.”
The family, he said, has always been quick to nurture the talents of their kids.
“We’ve always see the possibilities when they present themselves. It’s funny, as we watch the kids grow and they show an interest we encourage them to pursue it and get lessons. We try to find experts to give them instructions so they can progress and so we can find a way to incorporate them into the show.”
Today, nearly 30 singing and dancing third-generation Hughes are involved in the family show and business.

‘Warm and fuzzy’
The first half of the family’s Christmas show, Hughes said, “is probably the quintessential Christmas show most people will see. We sing all of the great traditional Christmas songs as a family, which Christmas is all about. Some of the songs we sing in the Christmas show we sang when we first started singing together as brothers.”
Hughes said that he and his brother have been singing “Jolly Old St. Nicholas” together for more than 25 years.
“It gives you that all warm and fuzzy Christmas feeling,” he said.
During the second half of the show, the theme turns more spiritual.
“Santa narrates the story of the true meaning of Christmas, with the symbols that Christmas represents,” he said. “In the end, Christmas is about Christ. People always tell us after the show that, ‘We are so glad that you put Christ back into Christmas.’ I think if you take Christ out of Christmas all you end up with is ‘Mas.’”

Dave Woods is new media manager for The Joplin Globe

Penguins, Snowflake girls
Putting smiles on the faces of the park’s guests is the job of Brad Schroeder, director of events and entertainment for Silver Dollar City. Since 1989, Schroeder has been a part of the creative team challenged with producing “Christmas on Main Street,” the “Gifts of Christmas Light Parade,” “A Dickens Christmas Carol” and reimagining the park’s five-story tall LED Christmas tree, which towers above town square.
“We started with just a five-story Christmas tree,” he said. “Now the entire square dances in lights to music. It’s a million-dollar upgrade that’s fun to see.”
Schroeder laughed and said he is impressed by the technology that generates the Christmas tree and town square’s musical special effects.
“The real magic is when the technicians take me inside the tree,” he said. “It’s a spaghetti web of cables and computers and metal and lights. It amazes me.”
Schroeder’s job is “exciting and challenging all of the time,” he said.
“We’ve got an awful lot of folks working (in the Light Parade) as drivers and performers and crowd controllers,” he said.
Sometimes, he explained, it’s the simplest things that make the biggest difference. When they started developing the Light Parade, Schroeder couldn’t figure out how to keep park guests out of harms way, away from the turning wheels of the parade floats.
A friend in the business told him it was easy.
“Just paint white lines on the ground to mark the parade route,” he said, laughing. “It’s crazy, but it worked.”
Schroeder and his team are always looking for new elements to keep the nighttime procession fresh.
“The parade started with a few floats and then we added some more,” he said. “This year we added penguins and some snowflake girls. We always want new things for people to see. It’s rewarding to watch the children’s faces as the floats and characters go by.”

Classic tale
Another production that gets park goers excited is “A Dickens Christmas Carol,” a musical retelling of the classic story of Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim.
“I think that everybody can relate to the story,” Schroeder said. “It’s been done a lot through the years.”
While the story is an old one, Silver Dollar City’s version has a couple of modern twists.
“Doing a story that everybody knows can be a creative double-edged sword,” he said.  “You have to surprise the audience with the familiar. They have never seen it presented the way we do it. Hopefully it resonates with the audience.”
Since debuting in 2003 the show has entertained more than 900,000 audience members. He said the park anticipates topping the million guest mark in 2011.
Schroder said the reason for the show’s success is because of the talent of the cast and crew.
“I tell people, ‘If you start with a terrific story and great talent you have a formula for success,’” he said.
Many of those onstage in the production are local residents and play a variety of roles at the park throughout the year.
“They all have ties to the area and homes and families,” he said. “Out of a cast of 30, we replaced only five or six this year. It makes my job pretty easy.”

Ozarks’ flavor
While the flash and glitter of millions of twinkling lights and the special and musical effects the park’s productions offer, the simpler attractions make people smile and reflect, too. A living nativity takes people back to the time of Christ’s birth in Bethlehem and an old-fashioned train ride offers visitors the opportunity to slow down.
During the regular season, robbers hassle and hold up passengers on the park’s steam powered locomotive, a longtime favorite of kids of all ages. During the Christmas season riders sing carols, share stories and drink hot chocolate while a wise old man reminds them of the “reason for the season,” the celebration of Christ’s birth.
In the wintertime, the guests seem drawn toward the retelling of the Christmas story with an Ozarks’ flavor, Schroeder said.
“’The reason for the season’ is in all of our products,” Schroeder said. “It’s part of our culture and it’s the reason we do this stuff, anyway.”

—- Watch video of Jarrett Dougherty as Brother Cecil Watkins here —–

One of Dougherty’s comic creations, Harry Pitts, shares a few characteristics with Tim Conway’s slow speaking — and even slower walking — “old man” from the classic ‘70s comedy variety show.
“(Harry Pitts) comes walking out on stage like Tim Conway used to do,” Dougherty said. “He would do that ‘barely scoot his feet walk,’ and get a long laugh. It took him forever to get where he was going. I don’t have that much time.”
Another character Dougherty brings to life during the evening show is Brother Cecil Watkins, an old-school, fire and brimstone preacher, who often — to the amusement of the audience — gets his Bible verses a little confused.
“He’s a mess,” Dougherty said. “He is the main preacher man at night. I’ve seen a lot of that stuff, being raised up in the church. I took many of the movements from those guys. I throw my hands up and wave a hankie and kick my leg and get excited.”
Dougherty said he learned much from the old-time preachers he heard when growing up.
A lot of people, he said, relate to his Brother Cecil character and the mess he sometimes makes of the scripture from the Good Book.
“Having the Bible all messed up you can tell who (in the audience) knows their Bible and who don’t. They are laughing and the people who don’t really know (the Bible) are just setting there looking at you like a mule at a new gate.”
Floyd the Janitor, another of his character creations, keeps the audience laughing during afternoon matinees.
“He’s the janitor at the theater,” Dougherty said. “He’s No. 1 at cleaning up No. 2.”
Two shows daily
Between the two daily shows, Dougherty brings six or more characters to the stage, complementing the music performed by the Pierce Arrow quartet and the female vocalists who keep the audience singing along.
“The (band and quartet) guys are great. They are great singers with vocal abilities,” Dougherty said, bragging. “Tim Storms, the bass singer, holds two world records. One for hitting the lowest note. He also has a record for the widest vocal range, which is six octaves. The other guys are just as talented. Gary Koreiba is great and his wife, Kim Boyce, sings in the night show. She’s had 11 No. 1 songs in contemporary Christian music.”
Quartet member Casey Ellison is from Willard, and Scott Fraker, another singing cast member, is from Niangua. The band’s keyboard player is a Branson native.
“It’s pretty nice to have some local people in the show,” he said.
His wife is the daughter of Richard “Butch” and Nancy Allen, of Joplin. He said his wife is “pretty crazy, herself.”
Dougherty said he hopes many Joplin-area residents will head south and check out the shows.
“They will have a blast and laugh themselves silly,” he said. “If they are not feeling good, don’t go see the doctor. Come down to the show. They say laughter is the best medicine, so you’ll either get better or die laughing.”