FAIRBURY - Born from a desire to soak up the vibes and sounds of a classic era of a country music – and a belief that even a small city in Southeast Nebraska has the heart and the space to host a big-time concert – famed local country radio station Ol’ Red 99.5 pulled off its first “Last Call for Summer” musical showcase on Friday night, expertly showcasing the hits of classic 90s country band Shenandoah to a captive crowd of more than a thousand people from Fairbury and beyond.  

“I think we’ve bought Fairbury out of every bag of ice,” Trevor Steinmeyer, Ol’ Red’s programming director and the event’s emcee, told the large crowd that filled out the grandstand and part of the track at the Jefferson County Speedway on Friday night. “This whole thing started with me and a few others [Jim Criner, Justin Stone and Abby Hasselbring] sitting at a bar table, talking about how we’ve always wanted to do something like this in Jefferson County, and I said let’s do it.” 

And finally, after months of planning, challenges and second-guesses, the first-of-its-kind event went off virtually flawlessly. Official crew members and volunteers showed up around 2 PM Thursday to start erecting the stage, lights and sound system and to lock down rooms at Fairbury’s two hotels for the guests of honor, most of whom were coming in from performing in Nashville the previous night. Fast forward less than 24 hours, and the crew was back on site for sound check, and to put the finishing touches on the merch table, food stands and the entrance points, ready for a deep influx of people to flood Fairbury’s fairgrounds on Friday night.  

The event was kickstarted by local artist Jordan Schoch, who grew up listening to and writing music in Nebraska and Kansas, attended Southeast Community College in Beatrice, and now makes his home in York, a short jaunt northwest from Fairbury. Schoch, who said he still farms full-time whenever he’s not performing gigs like this one, thanked Ol’ Red for playing some of his music early in his performing career, a time when “not a lot of other stations would,” he told the crowd.  

Of course, the main event was Shenandoah, the Alabama-bred act that became a staple of the country music scene in the 1990s. They had five different tracks make it to number one on the Billboard country charts between 1989 and 1994 and won both a Country Music Association and a Grammy award in the middle of the decade, hauling in a dozen other nominations along the way, before enjoying a “revival” in the last few years that has brought back together three of the musicians that helped Shenandoah reach its peak to perform again at events like this one across the country. 

“In the lineup of all the acts that you wanna bring in to this wonderful town you got, if we get a chance to come back, I can promise you, it would not hurt our feelings. I can promise you that,” lead singer Marty Raybon told the crowd.  

It was clear that for this band, whose impact still resonates on fans of the genre 30-plus years after their heyday, keeping the spirit and soul of 90s country music alive remains a key mission, one that the audience of approximately 1,200 certainly appreciated. 

Tons of people had to come together to make a big event like this possible: Side Trek Bar and Grill from Harbine provided the food and Tooley’s Bar in Fairbury provided the alcohol, with other drinks served up by the Fairbury Chamber of Commerce alongside Prellwitz Exteriors, the primary sponsor. Fairbury mayor Kelly Davis got to spend part of the day as a tour guide, escorting the band and crew through the town in Tahoes donated for the day by Fairbury’s Riverside Chevrolet.

"Great show and an awesome job by everyone involved with putting this together. It takes a lot of work and a lot of community support to make something like this come together and go as smoothly as this did," Davis wrote in a comment on Facebook. "My Favorite part was spending the day with the band, shuttling them around to the hotel, having a great lunch with them at Jalisco, and driving around with Mike the drummer and showing off Fairbury and eating ice cream from J & R's. I feel I made a couple new friends, exchanging phone numbers with promises to keep in touch."

Finally, once the show was over, and the band prepared for its next show the next night in eastern Iowa, a troupe of dedicated crew members and volunteers stuck around – some until one in the morning – to help break down the stage and ensure the Speedway was restored to its original condition – ready, perhaps, to host other events like this in the future.