One of the most popular country western bands of the early 1950s is reuniting and performing in concert here this weekend.

The 101 Ranch Boys — a six-member band that performed locally at festivals and at the Grand Ole Opry, and which recorded for Columbia Records — is performing Sunday at Zion United Church of Christ in Marietta.

The band will feature three of its original members — Lancaster County residents Smokey Roberts and the Rev. Warren "Rocky" Riedel, who is pastor of the church, and Leonard T. Zinn, of York.

The 101 Ranch Boys will perform a country gospel service at 10:15 a.m. at the church at 3 S. Waterford Ave. Marietta.

Original band members Riedel, 81, on drums, Roberts, 83, of Smokey's Divers Den fame, on accordion and Zinn, a member of the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame, will be joined by Jim Hicks, 78, on rhythm guitar, and David Hornberer of Harrisburg, on bass. Hicks formerly fronted his own band, the Oak Ridge Ramblers.

The Ranch Boys, which performed in movies with Roy Rogers and Gene Autry, also played as backup for Hank Williams Sr. and Faron Young.

The band recorded well-known cowboy songs "Two Cents, Three Eggs and a Postcard" and "Bluebird on Your Windowsill," among others, for Columbia.

Riedel and Roberts sat down recently to reminisce about the band. And do they ever have tales to tell.

In September 1951, they performed in the Cisco Kid Rodeo.

"Pancho was always drunk," Riedel said. "But Cisco was a peach."

Roberts, who was born in Oklahoma and grew up in Kansas, was just 15 when he joined the band.

"I didn't want to but they needed an accordion player and my mother made me go," he said.

Andy Reynolds and Cliff Brown, both now deceased, founded the band. Another original member, George Long, also is deceased.

The band was named for the 101 Ranch, in Ponca City, Okla., believed to be the biggest ranch in the world, with 101,000 acres, and site of a famous Wild West show.

Brown's mother, an American Indian, worked for the show and suggested the name for the band.

"Tom Mix went to 101 to learn to be a cowboy," Roberts said. Mix, of Driftwood, Pa., was a movie star in Hollywood from 1910 to 1935.

The 101 Ranch Boys performed on a daily half-hour live radio show on W9XBY in Kansas City, later moving to WSBA radio in York. They also had two live national radio shows, for ABC and MBS (Mutual Broadcasting System), each week.

The group went on tour at least once a year and frequently appeared locally.

"We pulled more people, 3,000, at Rocky Springs than the Mills Brothers," said Roberts. "It was a nice life. I liked it."

But around 1955, he left the band for a more stable life with a job at the former Trojan Boat Co.

In 1959, he opened Divers Den and went on to become an underwater cinematographer for National Geographic and the late Jacques Cousteau, among others.

It was at Rocky Springs in 1950 that Riedel, a county native, met the 101 band. He was playing there with his own band, Rocky Riedel and the Raiders, when the drummer for the Ranch Boys left unexpectedly.

"They were asking around for a drummer with cowboy clothes," he said. "Someone mentioned me, and I jumped at the chance.

"I always was a cowboy at heart. I lived in the country. I always had horses."

Riedel left the band when singer and songwriter Stuart Hamblen "brought me to Christ." He attended college and seminary and has served as a pastor, mostly in Lancaster County, ever since.

Playing the drums is not the only thing that sets Riedel apart as a pastor. The son of a magician — Riedel, the Master Magician — he usually performs a magic trick for the children at church on Sundays and has penned a book, "Effective Bible Magic."

Roberts and Riedel lost touch until about three years ago, when they met again by chance and renewed their friendship. Roberts joined Zion last year.

Both men served in the U.S. Navy during World War II.

"I was a corpsman," Riedel said. "We didn't kill, we just put people back together."

Roberts served on the USS St. Louis in a war zone.

"I had a lot of scary days getting shot at," he said, "We were going from Honolulu to Tokyo. We didn't get to Tokyo. They dropped the bomb."

He took his accordion with him on the ship and remembers nights playing sailors to sleep on the deck.

"Radios weren't allowed during war time," he said. "Officers were so glad to see a musical instrument that they carried it for me."

He'll play that same accordion on Sunday.