“Fort Apache.” a 1948 movie featuring John Wayne, Henry Fonda, and Shirley Temple, begins a country weekend in the Augusta Theatre at 7:30 p.m. Friday night. Admission cost is $5.
This movie will be a prelude to Saturday night and Sunday afternoon concerts from country-western musicians and singers.
Cost of both the Saturday and Sunday activities will be $10 per person.
An array of artists will be featured Saturday evening on stage of the downtown theatre at 523 State.
The Diamond W Wranglers (formerly the Prairie Rose Wranglers) will be appearing there Sunday afternoon.
The Saturday show begins at 7:30 p.m. The entertainment will include Mindy and Melissa Ramski (the reigning Miss Augusta), Rusty Rierson, The Tallgrass Express String Band, and Dylan Harris. The show begins at 7:30 p.m.
The Diamond W Wranglers will be in concert on the theatre stage at 2 p.m. Sunday.
These Wranglers formed in 1999 to entertain at the Prairie Rose Chuckwagon Supper facility near Benton.
 With the move to the new Diamond W Chuckwagon at Old Cowtown Museum, the name of the band has changed to the Diamond W Wranglers.
The group performs classic western music of the silver-screen cowboy era, such as "Cool Water," "Tumbling Tumbleweeds," and "Ghost Riders In The Sky," as well as classic cowboy trail songs and Prairie Rose Wranglers originals.
The Wranglers are lead singer and fiddle Stu Stuart, guitarist Jim Farrell, bass player Orin Friesen, and drummer Steve Crawford.
The tight harmonies and sidesplitting humor of the Wranglers make for a show that the whole family will enjoy....good, clean entertainment, the way it should be...the Cowboy Way."
Lead singer/lead guitarist/fiddler Stuart has Augusta-area connections and comes from an entertainment background. His grandfather, Hal O’Halloren was the chief announcer for many years on the famous WLS National Barn Dance in Chicago. While on the Barn Dance, Hal became friends with such western singing stars as Gene Autry, Patsy Montana, Smiley Burnette and Rex Allen. He also loved to sing cowboy songs. His recording of “Ghost Riders In The Sky” was the first cowboy song that his grandson, Stu, ever heard.
Stu began playing the guitar when he was a child. In high school, he started his first rock and roll band. After high school, Stu joined the Navy where he continued to hone his vocal and instrumental skills. Following his stint in the Navy, he played in a series of bluegrass and country bands before finally ending up in Nashville. There he helped form a country band called Hank Flamingo, which recorded an album for Giant Records. This led to singles on the record charts, videos on CMT, and appearances on the TV shows of Crook & Chase and Conan O’Brien
While in Nashville, Stu met Jim Farrell and ended up joining him in the J38 Land & Cattle Company. He loves the stories told in the classic cowboy songs and even writes a few of his own. His skills on guitar and fiddle have made him an in-demand studio musician.
When he’s not playing music, Stu can usually be found making things out of wood. Stu has been with the Diamond W Wranglers from the beginning and in nine years he has never missed a performance.