This week's 24th-annual Roy Rogers Festival will feature two unique events involving the Columbia Music Hall.

On Thursday, the hall will host the showing of Rogers' movie, “Bells of Coronado” at 6:30 p.m.

There will be a Western music concert at the hall the next night at 7 p.m.

The festival will run from Wednesday through Saturday and feature the stars of television Westerns “High Chaparral” and “Wagon Train.”

The guests from “High Chaparral” are Bob Hoy, Don Collier and Ted Markland.

Representing “Wagon Train” will be Robert Horton and Denny Miller.

Returning guests are Stella Stevens and Russ McCubbin.

Stevens has appeared in Western films, along with the '70 disaster flick, “Poseidon Adventure.”

McCubbin has appeared in several Western-themed television shows.

Those wanting to meet the stars can do so at a 1 p.m. luncheon at the Ramada Inn Friday.

Part of the proceeds from the festival will go toward a Shawnee State University scholarship program.

If $1,000 is raised, one student will get a scholarship. Two students will be served with $2,000, and so on.

The festival also will feature a Western memorabilia sale at the Ramada Inn throughout the week.

Rogers lived on Duck Run, in nearby McDermott for a period of his youth and attended what was then McDermott High School.

He was born in Cincinnati, close to where Great American Ballpark now stands.

His boyhood home in Scioto County is privately owned now and is no longer open for tours during the festival. But there is a historical marker in front of the home where visitors may take photos or videos of the house.

Fans of Rogers don't have to wait until the annual festivals to remember his life, however.

The Roy Rogers Hometown Memorabilia Exhibit, housed in the basement of the Portsmouth Post Office, contains posters, magazines, albums and photographs related to the life and times of Rogers, who died in 1998.

For more information or to be added to the festival mailing list, contact LaRue and Nancy Horsley at (740) 353-0900, or nancyandlarue@verizon.net.

Information also can be obtained by writing to the Roy Rogers - Dale Evans Collector's Association at P.O. Box 1166, Portsmouth, Ohio, 45662.

To find out more about this week's festival, log onto www.ourchurch.com/member/r/RRFestival-OHIO/.

JEFF BARRON can be reached at (740) 353-3101, ext. 236.