By KARI BLURTON
Hays Post
Before a crowd of more than 2,500 people, Kansas native Logan Mize followed by the legendary Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, belted out their hits on the midway of the Ellis County Fairgrounds Friday night.
As a boy growing in Clearwater Kansas, population “2,000 give or take,” Mize said he always dreamed of being on the stage.
“It feels really natural to me, oddly enough, it is just something I always wanted to do, something maybe a secret I kept growing up until I was able to move away from home and figure things out on my own and be myself, and then everything started to happen,” Mize said, “But you know, I was gone for a while and my favorite thing is coming back home.”
Mize said he has been in Nashville for about 8 years. His first album, ‘Logan Mize’ debuted in 2009 and his second, ‘Nobody in Nashville’ came out in 2012.
“So (I have) just been beating it up in a van for 5 or 6 years, driving around the country and Kansas is where it all started,” Mize said.
Mize’s hits include, “Good Life” and “Can’t Get Away From a Good Time.”
Mize was named the state’s Official Kansas Tourism Ambassador by the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks, and Tourism and is traveling the country with the Travel Kansas station wagon.
Mize, opened for the show’s headliner, the Nitty Gritty Dirty Band.
One of the NGDB’s founding members, John McEuen, said even after 48 years on the road, performing never gets old.
“We get older but the audience keeps us younger,” McEuen said, adding he feels NGDB has been “lucky” in that people continue to request their songs on the radio and their concerts remain popular.
“One reason the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band has kept up so long is because…well you could say Kansas and Wyoming and Colorado and places like that,” McEuen said, “People keep coming…it’s a good thing because we don’t have a job unless people keep coming.”
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band is best known for classics such as ‘Fishing in the Dark’ and ‘Mr. Bojangles.’
The Ellis County Fair concludes Saturday evening with the annual “Ellis County Fair Demolition Derby.”
For more information, visit the fair’s website at elliscountyfair.com.
