Family, Fans Bid Adieu To Cowboy Roy Rogers; Hearse Circles Museum

APPLE VALLEY, Calif. - Under a hot, windy Western sky, hundreds of Roy Rogers fans streamed into this tumbleweed-strewn desert city yesterday to bid the cowboy crooner "Happy Trails."

They wore cowboy boots and spurs, shorts and T-shirts and formal black attire, listening to the strains of "Happy Trails to You" in a packed Church of the Valley.

The 1,800 guests, many of them standing outside the church, laughed, cried and prayed while honoring the "King of Cowboys" at the public memorial service.

"There is more to come. This is not the end of the trail, it's the trail head for the greatest adventure in life," said the Rev. William Hansen, who has known the Rogers family for 30 years.

The singing cowboy, one of the last of the white hats from the golden era of Hollywood Westerns, died of congestive heart failure Monday in his home here, 90 miles northeast of Los Angeles. He was 86.

His wife, Dale Evans, wore a pink-colored suit and sat in a wheelchair as some 85 other family members filled the front pews. Before the crowd was an array of colorful flower bouquets and two framed paintings, one showing Rogers atop his horse and the other a simple portrait.

His white cowboy hat sat perched on one of the paintings until his son, Roy "Dusty" Rogers Jr., grabbed it on his way out. He waved to a cheering crowd that joined the family in a 13-mile procession to the actor's museum in Victorville in 106-degree heat.

There, four horses escorted a white hearse strewn with roses for one last ride around the Roy Rogers-Dale Evans Museum - home to Rogers' stuffed horse Trigger, stuffed dog Bullet and mementos of the couple's lengthy careers.

Rogers' career included 87 Western movies - 26 with Dale Evans - and a 1950s television series. For 12 years - 1943 to 1954 - he was the No. 1 Western star at the box office in a magazine poll of theater operators.

Of Rogers' numerous recordings, his best-known song was "Happy Trails to You," sung over the clippity-clop bass line. The tune, which became his theme song, was co-written by his wife, who was teamed with him in 1944 in "Cowboy and the Senorita."

Lois Reynolds, a resident of nearby Adelanto, said she wouldn't have missed the memorial for anything.

"For those of us living in the high desert, he was one of us. We let Roy Rogers be himself," Reynolds said. "He was the most wonderful human being. He was very special."

Outside the museum, fans gathered and sang an impromptu rendition of "Happy Trails." The Sons of Pioneers, a group Rogers co-founded in the 1930s, sang two songs.

After circling the museum, the hearse returned to the church where the family attended a private service and then planned to follow a horse-drawn hearse to the nearby burial site.