Memories of the BONANZA Friendship Convention 2005

Well we did it again! It seems every convention is going to be the last but the friendship and fun we have always makes us want to do another. This one started early for me and the fans of the prequel THE PONDEROSA. I had received an email, which explained that Matt Carmody and Drew Powell would not be able to be with us because of a prior commitment to a wedding. They were very apologetic and anxious to honor their promise to attend. We changed our program and arranged a dinner on the Thursday, so that at least they would be with us for about thirty-six hours! Well we sure made the most of them.

Jennie, Bev and I collected them from the airport at 5 p.m. and from that moment until they left in the early hours of Saturday morning I don’t think they had more than a few hours sleep or time to themselves. First came the dinner; Drew filmed us as we filmed and photographed them. Twenty-two fans finally sat down to dinner with them but eating was the last thing on our minds. “Adam” and “Hoss” entertained us in true Cartwright style with stories and jokes. We watched the pilot episode of THE PONDEROSA with many interesting asides from the actors and much laughter from us all. I would guess that hundreds of pictures were taken and through it all Matt and Drew were patient and smiling.

Friday was the start of our regular event, and our registration team led by Susan Grote did a sterling job of processing everyone and providing goodie bags with everything everyone needed to know and a gift of a mouse pad to remember the event. Once registered fans could: purchase memorabilia, obtain signed photos from the guests (the line for Drew Powell and Matt Carmody never stopped), hand in auction items to our auctioneer Jerri Barrett, talk to our VIP guests and buy signed copies of books by Greg Walcott, May Wale Brown and the late Linda Greene Bennett and purchase rare photographs from Andy Klyde.

Meanwhile in the main convention room videos had already started their twenty-five hour run. Regrettably our props and costume exhibition never arrived but Miss Maggie did manage to bring at least some of her Mini Ponderosa for fans to view.

Our guest dinner was a huge success, with speeches from Wendy Czarnecki, Jack Williams, Greg Walcott and Mitch Vogel. Mitch was making his third convention visit and called his best friends Mark Hollingsworth and Rick Drown to join him. Rick (Mitch’s double in BONANZA) ducked beneath the podium and came up wearing his ginger wig to show us how he transformed into Jamie. I managed to work out how to use a microphone (badly) to deliver messages from alumni who could not be with us; Cindy Landon, Dolphia Blocker, Kent and Susan McCray, David Canary and, surprisingly Pernell Roberts, all sent their good wishes.

After dinner the lines for autographs formed again either at the dinner tables or at our reception table. I hope everyone got all the ones they wanted!

I managed a quick visit to the Writers’ seminar, which was very early on Saturday, but writers don’t seem to mind strange hours. The Auction started at 9.30 and over ran by almost an hour; we had to cancel a video but no one seemed to mind. The total raised for charity was $10,500 and was divided as follows: $500 for the Breast Cancer Charity in memory of Linda Greene Bennett, $4,500 for Michael Landon’s Cancer Charity, $2,500 for the Thanks for Giving Project on behalf of Pernell Roberts, and $1,500 each for Katrina Hurricane Appeal via the Red Cross and The Wild Horses of Nevada (Lacy J Dalton’s Charity). Thank you to the winning bidders, the losing bidders and all who donated, not to mention Jerri’s wonderful team of helpers. I actually managed to restrict my buying, if not my bidding this year, I’m still paying off 2002 debts from the auction.

Our trip to Virginia City was fun but all too brief, I managed a drink in the Bucket of Blood where I saw several fans drinking in the beer and the atmosphere. On to the Barbecue at the Seven-Mile-Canyon Ranch; our hosts Peter and Judy Sorenson did a grand job. This high desert ranch is nearer to the location and the style of a real Ponderosa than the theme park, but fans who had not seen the theme park before it closed were a little disappointed. The food was good and the entertainment, which included well-known country/folk singer Lacy J Dalton, was superb. However, the weather didn’t favor us, despite burners at several spots, when the guitar strings wouldn’t tune, the players fingers were blue, and we were all frozen, we decided it was time to abandon the great outdoors for the warmth of the Biltmore. Guess we wouldn’t make pioneers singing around a campfire!

However, once warm again, we were entertained royally by Mitch Vogel, his daughter Shauna, who has the voice of an angel, Mark Hollingsworth and of course Jean and Butch Hibben who sang and then led us through another hilarious square dance.

Sunday was our regular early start for a trip on MS Dixie II. One day we will get the tickets sorted so that we don’t have to wait for over half an hour to board. This time we did not have enough people to charter the boat so we shared with regular visitors. They gave us one or two strange looks but accepted that one hundred and forty Cartwrights and their friends were on board. This is the third time I’ve done this cruise and because of convention commitments I still haven’t seen the site where Joe built that flume! Maybe in 2009?

Every bus stopped twice at the meadows so that each side could get photos, it is a pity that there is now a house on the lakeshore and that view is no longer the one we all know so well from the opening credits. I suppose it just shows that we should capture these images and memories while we can.

A Brief meeting was held on the future of BONANZA Gold, the consensus was to keep it purely BONANZA related with no inclusion of High Chaparral, although a possible link to any magazine the fans of that show might produce was not ruled out. Many fans offered to write articles and stories and I will be chasing them on that! Many others suggested ways to increase circulation in an effort to keep down the price, again I will be calling for help with this.

Sunday afternoon and our quiz. This time, a horse race, six horses, or should I say five horses and Henry Comstock’s mule, Dorothy lined up. Teams of three drew straws (no cheating in this one) for the privilege of playing and then drew their horse. The team fastest on the buzzer got to answer the question and there was much hilarity as each team tested buzzers to make sure they were working. Adam and Joe were obviously entertaining ladies somewhere because for the majority of the quiz Cochise and Sport didn’t leave the stables. Hoss and Jamie put up a fight but Ben and Buck were unstoppable for the first half of the contest. Then he was being overtaken, right on the line good old Dorothy showed how valuable a sure-footed mule can be. Pat, Maggie and Tara were the winners, with the Stone family of Mary, Amanda and Ricky coming second. Sport and Cochise and their teams tied for last place.

A good evening of video watching was to round off the celebrations but before that we had our closing ceremony. Amongst all the fun and laughter we did not forget that this was the anniversary of the death of our beloved Lorne Greene and a beautiful tribute was paid in verse by Lynne Coulson. Many of us were in tears as she read it. As well as thanking all our attendees and guests, Tom Swann announced that we had been persuaded to consider a fiftieth anniversary event, so this is not the last. We’d like to make this special, make the BONANZA Credo really come to life and raise twice as much for charity. Let’s try to make it a sell out in 2009 as a thank you to all those who made BONANZA the greatest show on television.

Vicki, Tom, Heike and all the team at Bonanza Convention and Bonanza Gold.