Page 6 - Discover Winter 2023

Editor’s Note
I had the opportunity to interview the late
Roy Rogers, and his wife, Dale Evans, on two
separate occasions, more than 40 years ago.
I was working at a radio station in
Frederick, MD at the time. My job was to
write and produce commercials.
One of our big advertising clients was a
man named Pete, who owned all three of the
Roy Rogers franchise fast food restaurants
in Frederick. He had built all of them, and
his account rep, Richard, came to me one
day to tell me that Pete wanted to use Roy’s
actual voice in his commercials. I had been
accustomed to receiving some really insane
requests from other clients, so I rolled my eyes
and asked exactly how I was expected to pull
off such a miracle.
“No problem,” Richard assured me with a
wave of his hand. “Pete and Roy are friends.”
I let that sink in for a minute.
“You’re telling me that Pete is a personal
friend of THE Roy Rogers?”
“Yep,” he answered. “Before he built these
restaurants, Pete was a VP for Marriott
Corporation, he was in charge of the Roy
4 Discover Smith Mountain Lake WINTER 2022
By Tim Ernandes
Rogers franchise.”
Wow. The plan was for me and Richard, and
one other sales rep, to drive down to D.C., less
than an hour away, and meet up with Roy in
his hotel suite (Marriott, of course). We were
accompanied by the PR rep from the local
college, who wanted to interview Roy for the
college newspaper.
I had met other celebrities prior to this, but
none with the star magnitude of a Roy Rogers.
It was a delightful experience.
As a child growing up, I loved cowboy
shows, and while I knew his name, I could not
recall ever having watched any of his shows
or movies. Nonetheless, I was excited to meet
this legendary man. Richard had asked me
to script some liners for Roy to record. I was
familiar enough with the man to be able to
write words that would sound like his own. So,
cassette recorder in hand, I accompanied this
little entourage to the Crystal City Marriott.
I was immediately struck by the pure
sincerity of the man. He was warm, friendly,
and entirely unpretentious. I was not prepared
for his straightforward honesty when he began
to answer our questions. One might assume