COOPER, Iowa, May 25, 2007 – Bicyclists on the third annual “Trails & Trills” bike ride on Saturday, June 2, on the Raccoon River Valley Trail will be serenaded by a piccolo player, a brass duet, vocalists, a honky-tonk pianist playing on a river bridge, a violin ensemble, a clarinet duet, a trumpet soloist, a harmonica-playing balloon artist, a whole municipal band and more.

More than 10 performing groups will be scattered between Jefferson and Cooper on the north eight miles of the 56-mile-long RRVT. The ride starts at 10 a.m. at the restored Jefferson Depot, with lunch served at the trailhead in Cooper.

The musicians include:

– Trumpet players Peg Semke and Wayne Lautner, of Jefferson, who will perform the National Anthem and a fanfare send-off at 10 a.m. at the Jefferson Depot.

– The Town & Country Band, of Churdan, playing after 11 a.m. for lunch in Cooper.

– Piano player Rick Morain, of Jefferson, playing at the 600-foot-long trestle bridge over the North Raccoon River.

– Elise Knaub, piccolo and flute player at Jefferson-Scranton High School, doing “Stars & Stripes Forever” and other numbers.

– Mother & son acoustic strings players Dolores and Joe Cullen, of Storm Lake, on guitar, fiddle and tin whistle.

– Balloon-twisting harmonica player Paul Kammarmeyer, of Manchester, at both the Jefferson Depot and the Cooper trailhead.

– Sousaphone player Danny Jorgensen, of Napierville, Illinois, a recent graduate of Iowa State University. He’s been a fraternity brother and roommate there of Chris Deal, of Jefferson. “Jorgy” says one of his favorites when he’s playing the sousaphone is the Enrique Iglesias hit “Hero.”

– The brass duet of J. Mathew Novak and J. Matthew Schutt, band directors at Carlisle High School and Middle School, respectively.

– Noted vocalist Larry Dowd, of Jefferson, if he’s not doing spraying of farm fields, and if he is spraying, someone else will be invited to sing as “Not Larry Dowd.”

– Clarinet duet of Hank Muzney and Katie Rice, Jefferson-Scranton High School students.

– Trumpet soloist Joe Ellis, of Huxley, of the High Society Big Band that performs at the annual Cooper Prom.

– Violin player Janice Johnston, of Rippey, and possibly some of her violin students.

– James Healy, Jefferson-Scranton High School vocalist and instrumental player, possibly soloing, possibly playing with a group of students doing “a bunch of pep band selections that would be fun for us and fun for the bikers,” he tells us.

The $18 registration fee includes a T-shirt, one-day pass on the RRVT and lunch. Same-day registration and packet pick-up begins at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday. The lunch is available to non-cyclists, too, for $5 and includes beef burgers, Cooper farmer Darrell Scheuermann’s famous baked beans, chips, dessert bars and cold drinks. E-mail us at info@raccoonrivervalleytrail.org, or call (515) 386-5488 with questions. For a ride application that you can print out and mail, Click here.

Sponsors of the event are the RRVT Association, the Greene County Conservation Board and the Committee for a Super Cooper.

Article Published: 05-25-2007