By CSC College Relations
CHADRON – Sam Adams, a comedian from the Denver area, will perform Thursday at 7:30 p.m. in Memorial Hall. Tickets are free for Chadron State College students and employees. Advance tickets are $15 for adults and $13 for youth and seniors. Tickets at the door will be $16.
His “True Colors” video on Dry Bar went viral in 2017, something he said his elderly mother asked him if he could be vaccinated against. The video, with more than 31 million views, relates an experience he had about a decade earlier in the paint section of a McCook, Nebraska, Wal-Mart. He was trying to match his skin color to various paint chips.
“I’m not black. I can be hoot owl or chocolate indulgence. And the clerk was not white. When I said that, I think he thought I was arguing with him and others started to gather around. Then I held a paint chip up to him and showed him that he was papaya smoothie,” Adams said.
Adams, 60, placed first in the amateur division of the Great American Comedy Festival in Norfolk, Nebraska, in 2009 after his previous job as a sports writer came to an end when the Rocky Mountain News closed. The organizers of the contest decided to invite Adams to compete in the professional category, and he placed second. That launched him into 10 years of crisscrossing the state from Ogallala to York and Bayard to Falls City. He has even performed in Chadron before.
Adams, 60, said most of his routine is observational, drawing on his own life experiences and those of other ordinary family and friends.