A little more than a year ago, I did a story on Cowboy Bill Martin, the comedian who grew up in Saginaw. The headline (written not by me, but a copy editoor) summed Martin up nicely: "Cowboy comic determined to be more than a hat act."
Martin wears a cowboy hat, but he does not do cowboy humor. But he does stay busy. He's been all over the world, sometimes as a cruise-ship comedian, other times on good will tours to soliders in Afghanistan and Iraq. And one of his latest acts is, well, a hat act -- but perhaps not in the way you're thinking.
Earlier this month, according to his Posse newsletter, Martin and his fiancee picked up a U-Haul, drove to Garland, and loaded up nearly 900 hats donated by Reistol. They then drove to ovided to us by the great folks at Resistol in Garland, TX and drove them the nearly 2000 mile round trip to Camp COCO,a summer camp for boys and girls who have cancer. This was part of Martin's work with his Cowboys Who Care Foundation, which provides cowboy hats to children with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses.
According to a release, Martin was initially inspire two years ago after he was asked to do a fundraiser/golf tournament for a young fan named Ashley Miller. Miller lost her battle with a rare form of cancer in July of last year. “Since her passing I knew I wanted to help other kids like Ashley if I could," Martin says in the release. "Then one day, I was at my computer and searched, 'Kids with cancer Images' and found these beautiful pictures of these kids with wonderful smiles and baldheads. And in the mirror, I could see my cowboy hat and it hit me, these kids need cowboy hats. So I put together a team of entertainers, rodeo and promotions people to form CWCF, because what kid wants to wear a wig, but what kid, healthy or otherwise, wouldn’t want to wear a cowboy hat?”
This was Cowboys Who Care's first big donation event. For more information on the organization, visit the foundation's Facebook page.
Also in the newsletter is the news that Martin has recently wrapped taping on his first TV pilot, Honky Tonk Central, which was filmed July 9-11 in Nashville. Not a lot of info on that, except that Martin is a staff writer on the comedy, and that his newsletter links to this joint.
Martin also just released the teaser video for 400 Horses, a song he co-wrote with Will Marion and John Shaw. The song is due out Aug. 1, but here's a snippet. If you watch all 49 seconds of it, you'll see it's being shot all over the world -- including in Fort Worth, Texas, USA.
