 Horse-riding children’s presenter ‘has a special way of communicating’
Cowboy Dan hopes that his new children’s DVD series, fresh to Christian retail stores, captures the spirit of Mr. Rogers—though he swaps a hat for a cardigan and welcomes viewers to “Cowboy Dan’s Frontier” rather than the neighborhood. The 30-minute episodes were shot at a friend’s farm and on location as host “Cowboy Dan” Harrell visits different people on his horse, Biscuit, offering educational tidbits, music and homespun wisdom for a kindergarten through 4th-grade audience. Created as an outgrowth of Harrell’s popular school assembly presentations about health and character—to more than 450,000 kids in the last 12 years—his videos each take the title of one of the songs he has recorded on three albums. One of the recordings won a Best Children’s Album prize at the Nashville Music Awards. Last month’s debut release, Under Construction (8-84501-06642-6, $10.99), explicitly features Harrell’s Christian faith. Three more episodes to follow soon offer more general lessons in positive family values, though Harrell intends all future productions to incorporate Christian concepts. His faith has brought him through the challenge of life as a single father of four, left a widower when his youngest child and first son, Hud, was just 9 days old. “Our whole lives changed in an instant,” Harrell recalled. Now 9 years old, Hud appears on his dad’s programs. The “Cowboy Dan’s Frontier” episodes, produced by Harrell’s own Merrell Music company, are being distributed by Wesscott Marketing, whose vice president of sales and marketing, Murray Adams, said that after watching one of Harrell’s shows, “it took me no more than a few minutes to realize that he has a special way of communicating to children.” The four episodes have been broadcast recently on the Daystar Television Network, with Harrell intending to make some in-store appearances in the Nashville area to promote them. To order, contact Wesscott Marketing at 800-375-3702.
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