Saving Trigger

Saving Trigger

Saving Trigger. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. I grew up in the late 50's, early 60's and am not ashamed to say I shared a lot of time with Roy Rogers, Trigger and Bullet. I rode right along with them through many, many great adventures so it was with some dismay that I recently learned that the children of Roy and Dale had closed their museum and were planning auctioning off everything...including Trigger! I'm pretty sure somewhere in the Bible is a passage that says "Thou shalt not auction off Trigger!" Maybe. GOTTSCH: They're icons of a lot of people's childhood and to millions of people it's not a stuffed horse and dog it represents our youth and Saturday mornings and watching Roy Rogers movies and being part of the Rider's Club. That is Patrick Gottsch, President and Founder of RFD-TV who recently purchased both Trigger and Bullet. GOTTSCH: I've never seen and I've read every email that's come into RFD-TV for 10 years, I've never seen such emotion come out of our audience on any one matter than I did when people started finding out about the auction taking place on the Roy Rogers Museum. People were just absolutely upset about it so it just made sense that RFD-TV was in a position to maybe do something about it. And indeed they did. RFD-TV is based in Omaha, Nebraska with affiliates in all 50 states. Gottsch says they definitely have plans for the two icons. GOTTSCH: We don't consider ourselves owners of Trigger and Bullet. To us there's only one owner of Trigger and Bullet and that's Roy Rogers and always will be. We consider ourselves caretakers from this point on and to continue the job that was started by Roy Rogers and his family with the museum and that's keep the spirit of the old west alive through Trigger and Bullet so we're going to take them on a 48-state tour here in the next year. RFD-TV and the Rogers family will team up for the Saturday airings of Roy Rogers movies, with Dusty introducing each episode while providing inside stories on growing up with Roy and Dale. In addition, western music performed by Dusty, his son Dustin, and their western group "The High Riders" will also be a part of each program. GOTTSCH: Next year, coincidentally, 2011 is the 100th birthday of Roy Rogers on November 5th so we're going to tour the country in honor of that and to promote that and promote the Rider's Club. We do a float each year in the Rose Parade and it's out intention for, not this coming year but the following year, to have a float dedicated to Roy Rogers and put Trigger and Bullet on it and that will kind of be the end of the tour and then they'll come back here to Omaha, Nebraska. Where Gottsch says they on public display in a museum wing of the new RFD-TV corporate and broadcast headquarters to be planned and built in the next year. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.
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