This is it–the final Queen of the West Wednesday. The book officially launches on Friday, April 15. It’s hard to believe I started this series way back on February 2! Thanks for sticking with it or for popping in now and then. Here are the final two chapters, along with their opening lines.
Chapter Thirteen. A Date with Dale: Maintaining a Television Career
A period of calm set in for Dale Evans and Roy Rogers, so they took the opportunity to try something new to reach more existing fans and perhaps acquire new ones.
It was the late 1960s, and Dale was in her mid-fifties. She and Roy still hoped to land a prime time television show but had no luck. They opened a museum in Apple Valley to showcase their movie and t.v. careers. Dale wrote books as she wrestled with the social, political, and cultural changes of the decade. In the early 1970s she began planning her own Christian talk show. After more than a decade, it finally appeared in 1985 on the Trinity Broadcasting Network as A Date with Dale, a thirty-minute weekly program that focused on Christian and spiritual topics.
(postcard of the museum in Apple Valley, CA)
Chapter Fourteen. “Thank Heavens for Dale Evans”: Becoming the Legendary Cowgirl
While Dale Evans was never exactly put on a pedestal, she received more honors during this late stage of her life, often accompanied by descriptions of her as a “legend.”
In 1990, a new, all-female group then known as the Dixie Chicks, wrote a song about her. Through that decade, despite a myriad of health problems, Dale filmed episodes of A Date with Dale, recorded more songs, and wrote more books. She endured the death of her beloved husband, Roy Rogers, in 1998, and died at home three years later, surrounded by family.
Happy trails, everyone!
(Republic Pictures)
Theresa Kaminski 
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