As cowboy folksinger Pick Temple, Lafayette Parker Temple (c. 1911 - Dec. 21 1991) starred in The Pick Temple Giant Ranch television show from 1948 through 1961.

The Pick Temple Giant Ranch TV show

His children’s show featured his guitar playing and singing, puppet shows, cartoons, his pony Piccolo, and Lady, his faithful Collie canine companion. Viewers sent postcards to Pick, hoping he might pick them as “Lucky rangers” to appear as guests on his show, sitting in the studio’s hayloft. Pick's opening greeting, "Heidi, Pardner!" was a tip of the hat to the Heidi Bakery, which was the bakery affiliated with the grocery chain. The show aired on WTOP

WUSA (TV)

WUSA is a television station broadcasting on channel 9 in Washington, D.C.. Owned by the Gannett Company, WUSA is an affiliate of the CBS television network, and the longest-tenured affiliate of that network...

, seven days per week, in the Washington, D. C. area and was sponsored by a local grocery store chain, Giant Food of Landover, Maryland

Landover, Maryland

Landover is an unincorporated community in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States, within the census-designated place of Greater Landover. The Prince Georges County Sports and Learning Complex is in Landover...

http://www.kaptainkidshow.com/pick6.html.

Appearance on The Rifleman

Temple also appeared on ABC-TV’s weekly Western series, The Rifleman

The Rifleman

The Rifleman is an American Western television program that starred Chuck Connors as homesteader Lucas McCain and Johnny Crawford as his son, Mark McCain. It was set in the 1880s in the town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory. The show, filmed in black-and-white with a half hour running time, ran...

, starring Chuck Connors

Chuck Connors

Chuck Connors was an American actor, writer, and professional basketball and baseball player. His best known role from his forty-year film career was Lucas McCain in the 1960s ABC hit Western series The Rifleman....

 as Lucas McCain. In the episode, “Honest Abe” (November 20, 1961), a friend of Lucas’ who resembled Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...

 stopped at a saloon in North Fork, New Mexico (the town closest to McCain’s ranch), for a drink of water. (Temple played a guitarist who sang "Blue-tailed Fly," also known as "Jimmy Cracked Corn," with the saloon’s patrons. The townspeople—except for Matt Yordy—play along with the Lincoln look-alike, who claims that he is the president, who is looking for a fight. McCain's son, Marcus (Johnny Crawford

Johnny Crawford

John Ernest "Johnny" Crawford is a prolific American character actor, singer and musician. At 12, Crawford rose to fame for playing Mark McCain, the son of the Lucas McCain character , in the popular 1960s ABC western series, The Rifleman, which aired from 1958 to 1963...

), obliges him http://kidshow.dcmemories.com/pick3.html.

Pre-television career

Prior to his career in show business, Temple had been employed as an economic statistician in the Business Division of the U.S. Census Bureau. http://kidshow.dcmemories.com/pick5.htmlhttp://www.kaptainkidshow.com/pick6.htm

Library of Congress music archives contributions

During the Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

, Temple rode the rails, listening to the melancholic folksongs of the day, some of which, in 1948, he recorded for the Library of Congress

Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...

’ music archives http://www.kaptainkidshow.com/pick6.htm.

Post-television career

After The Pick Temple Giant Ranch was cancelled, Temple returned to government service, working for the Office of Economic Opportunity

Office of Economic Opportunity

The Office of Economic Opportunity was the agency responsible for administering most of the War on Poverty programs created as part of United States President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society legislative agenda.- History :...

’s Public Affairs Section and as an audio-visual expert, producing motivational films for Volunteers in Service to America

Volunteers in Service to America

VISTA or Volunteers in Service to America is an anti-poverty program created by Lyndon Johnson's Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 as the domestic version of the Peace Corps. Initially, the program increased employment opportunities for conscientious people who felt they could contribute tangibly to...

 (VISTA

Volunteers in Service to America

VISTA or Volunteers in Service to America is an anti-poverty program created by Lyndon Johnson's Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 as the domestic version of the Peace Corps. Initially, the program increased employment opportunities for conscientious people who felt they could contribute tangibly to...

). http://www.kaptainkidshow.com/pick6.htm

Temple died in 1991. His survivors include his son Park, his daughter Faye, and four grandchildren
http://www.kaptainkidshow.com/pick6.html.

External links

• http://www.kaptainkidshow.com/pick6.html
• http://kidshow.dcmemories.com/pick5.html
• http://kidshow.dcmemories.com/pick3.html
• http://kidshow.dcmemories.com/pick1.html#at
• http://www.riflemanconnors.com/Honest%20Abe.htm
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg-S2Qm7N-k