FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Kicking Up Dust For Kids
Producer Benford Standley and his company Buffalo Benford Multimedia, plans to
donate a percentage of the proceeds from the sales of the Jimmie Rodgers Saga, the
Me and Merle Memoir and The First Annual Jimmie Rodgers Texas Music Festival
including all merchandise sales to a foundation that is now being set up to go online in
the late Fall of 2022. KUD For Kids, Inc. will be a non-profit organized to distribute
funds to several National programs presently working to help Runaway, Throwaway and
Homeless Children and Youth in the streets of these United States of America.
Down the track we plan to create and help finance a working wilderness ranch for homeless
and runaway kids where they can help work the land farming and help preserve wildness
animals and become a shelter where the kids can take care of homeless horses and dogs
to be given to families that want to care for them. At the same time introduce the kids to
adults who might want to give the kids themselves a home. Such a grand irony. They will
learn gardening, climate change sciences, alternative energy sources that will be part of the
actual ranch operation, the arts, music and film and will have events on the ranch that the
kids produce and further learn media skills. The name of the wilderness program for kids
and wildlife is AGATE WILDERNESS RANCH.
Reason and tie ins to Jimmie Rodgers and Merle Haggard is that Jimmie Rodgers was a
runaway and ran away from home with a medicine show when he was 13, and Merle
Haggard began hopping freights as a boy and first time to run away he was 11, and Merle
and a friend ran away to Texas when he was 14. Merle spent most of his teen years running
away and escaping, from California Youth Authority detention centers...all leading to his
being placed at the age of 21 in San Quinton prison.
Benford has written three books on the state and fate of children in the US, he wrote the first
legislation in the state of Texas to help Runaway Kids, and was a part of the creation and
marketing of the Runaway Hotline run out of the Texas Governor's office and a nation wide
800-number offering help to runaways in the streets of the Nation. Benford has worked with
a number of state and National organizations over the years, done countless benefits for
these kids in need, worked with some of the top people in the Nation on a Symposium he
produced on runaways and troubled youth. He worked with the Texas Rangers, U.S. Justice
Department, the F.B.I. and is working on his fourth book Some Ran East...Some Ran West:
They're All Running Around in the Cuckoo's Nest.
After Merle and Benford spent a few days filming Merle talking about the days as a troubled
and runaway youth, Benford went over and sat in the chair next to Merle's rocking chair in
his living room out on Hag's ranch and told him about his many years working with the
concerns of these kids and working on many projects to help these kids, and how he thought
it was such an irony that he and Merle were connecting on this level. Merle got close to
Benford looking deep and hard at him and said,
"This is why we met...we got to help these kids."
Merle and I had a strong conviction to
keep working on this great train story
until we hit gold, then we would load
it with coal and ride the red carpets
while we help kids not make the
mistakes that he made and to bring
more attention to the cause. We both
had a deep passion to do this and I will
carry that torch into the darkness for my
dear saddle pal Merle Haggard and the
many thousands of kids in need of help.
click above
BENFORD'S 1/2 CENTURY
HELPING TO HELP THE
HOMELESS RUNAWAY
CHILDREN AND YOUTH
IN THE UNITED STATES.
In 1931 President Hoover led a Red Cross radio appeal, in a broadcast featuring former
New York governor and presidential candidate Al Smith, former President Calvin Coolidge,
actress Mary Pickford and, from Arkansas, Will Rogers. After this broadcast, Jimmie
Rodgers, dying inexorably of tuberculosis in Kerrville, Texas, volunteered his services to
Will Rogers via telegram. Being a big fan, Will said yes. So, the tale of "distant sons"
begins.
This is a true story about one of the lesser known events of the great depression, a tour by
Will Rogers and Jimmie Rodgers in 1931 that saved thousands from starvation. Few
Americans today know about the tour; fewer still understand its impact. The efforts of Will
and Jimmie not only saved untold millions of Americans from the horror of famine that year,
but also paved the way for the growth and maturation of the American Red Cross. The
tour’s effects reverberate today, through such events as our friend Willie Nelson's "Farm
Aid," Ken Kragen's "We Are The World," " Live Aid," and the many other benefits that
musicians lend a voice and a song to, and the ongoing work of the American Red Cross
world wide.
These two "distant sons" performed 50 shows in 18 days across Oklahoma, Arkansas, and
Texas, starting in San Antonio, Texas. It is said that the tour made over $250,000, which
was a huge amount of money at the time. The Assistant secretary of the Navy for aviation
provided them with the use of a Navy Curtis "Hell-Diver" aircraft, named Mystery Ship, and
was piloted by the famous aviator Frank Hawks, who also performed monologues and rope
tricks as an act on the tour. Rogers and Rodgers gave all box office receipts to the Red
Cross with the stipulation that half be used for urban relief and half for rural, with a special
grant made to the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma.
The tour with Will and Jimmie's assorted national radio pleas, ultimately saw $3 million
dollars raised for the American Red Cross. The donations checked the growth of an already
catastrophic situation. For example, the agency fed 150,000 people per week in Arkansas
in January 1931. By the end of February, that number had increased to 500,000 per day.
"Neither Will Rogers nor Jimmie Rodgers finished high school, (nor did Merle Haggard).
They were not elected officials, not policy-makers, not economists. Yet - through what they
saw and knew personally - they accepted and acted upon an unpleasant reality that men of
greater education and influence disregarded. By selflessly volunteering their services, the
three entertainers gave new hope to people who were starving. They provided an unknow-
able number of Americans with a reason to keep going, a sense that circumstances would
eventually change for the better. Today, Will and Jimmie continue to inspire us with the notion
that in time a genuine crisis, figures will arise who have the courage to recognize the truth of
a situation-and the willingness to act accordingly and virtuously." from DeltamyHome.com
In that spirit, the producers and team of the Jimmie Rodgers Projects and the Me & Merle
Memoir dedicate their energy to helping the millions of runaway, throwaway, homeless
and incarcerated children and youth of these United States of America. The state and fate of
these millions of children in the streets and alleys, jails, detention centers, foster homes, lost,
and crying, need a National effort to help with the pain and suffering that is a mark against
who we are as a Nation and a people "for God's sake...I would think." I titled one of my books
THESE ARE OUR CHILDREN.
click above
BENFORD'S 1/2 CENTURY
HELPING TO HELP THE
HOMELESS RUNAWAY
CHILDREN AND YOUTH
IN THE UNITED STATES.
For more information on Benford Standley's 55 years
of work to help children and youth in the United States
go to Some Ran East...Some Ran West on his website.
Following is some history of a half century of his work
to help kids... BenfordStandley.com
Benford Standley, Director/Producer
Buffalo Benford Multimedia
