Sunday, February 9, 2025

Howdy everyone!

The Gathering is now less than 2 weeks away. If you don't have tickets yet, you might want to get your tickets now. Remember, all ticketed shows use reserved seating.

Also, if you need a place to stay, check our Lodging page. We've highlighted locations with known availability as of a few days ago. There's a list at the top, with web links for each place further down the page.

Our Jan. 15 newsletter featured the first seven returning performers from outside Texas. If you missed it, you can read it online.

Now, here is the next group of performers from outside Texas, in alphabetical order.

Chuck Milner is a singer/songwriter who has been playing cowboy music for more than 40 years. He has been involved with the music at the Working Ranch Cowboys Association WCRR Finals for many years, is a former Artist-in-Residence for the Oklahoma State Arts Council, and has done work for the Mid-America Arts Council and the National Council for Traditional Arts. His songs have been recorded by many other performers. Chuck is also a retired USDA Range Specialist and owner of an Angus cow/calf operation in western Oklahoma with his wife, Beth. He will be performing with his daughter, Hallie Milner.

Hallie Milner is a fifth-generation Oklahoman. She grew up going to cowboy poetry gatherings with her dad, Chuck Milner, and began playing the fiddle with him at age 10. Now she works for a political policy group in Oklahoma City.

John Moore makes his living both as an equine clinician and as a musician, and has become well known in both fields. John has spent 4 months per year for the last 30 years teaching equine sciences and horsemanship clinics throughout Europe. He has become well known for rehabilitating horses with behavioral issues, as well as taking performance horses from many different disciplines to the next level of performance. As a mndolinist, guitarist, and vocalist, John's musical performances have led him throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe and Japan, and into the studio doing radio and television commercials, movie soundtracks and countless sessions for other artists. He has appeared in film productions by, and done movie soundtracks for, Paramount Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, A&E Television Network, The Nashville Network and for the HBO Series Deadwood (in which he also appeared). He was the mandolinist, guitarist and vocalist for the internationally acclaimed band Bluegrass Etc, and the mandolinist with the award-winning band California. He is also a sought-after teacher, having taught some of today's hottest young musicians. John and his wife Erika also produced, filmed, and edited the films Keeping The Tradition Alive and The Legacy Lives On for the Lone Star Cowboy Poetry Gathering.

Terry Nash lives on a small ranch near Loma, Colorado, where he and his wife Kathy raise horses, hay, and beef, and spend as much time on the mountain horseback as possible. Along with writing and reciting his original cowboy poems, Terry brings classic cowboy poetry to stages throughout the West, and has co-written a couple of songs. He received "Male Poet of the Year" honors from the International Western Music Association in 2018, and the same year his album A Good Ride won the Cowboy Poetry Album award from the IWMA.

Andy Nelson is a second-generation farrier who also has the ability to entertain an audience. Raised in Oakley, Idaho, Andy traveled the Great Basin of southern Idaho, northern Utah, and northern Nevada with his father on farrier jobs from the time he was a child until he went off to college. While in college at Utah State University, he continued to shoe horses for the USU Horsemanship Program. Now Andy lives in Pinedale, Wyoming, where he and his wife Jaclyn raise horses and children. Andy and his farrier brother Jim co-host the Clear Out West (C.O.W.) Radio weekly syndicated radio show and podcast, and the brothers are in demand as announcers at regional rodeos. Andy has received the Male Poet of the Year numerous times from the International Western Music Association. You can hear Andy interviewed by Andy Hedges on Cowboy Crossroads, episode 84.

Vess Quinlan is a fourth generation on both sides of his family to raise livestock on both the eastern and western slope of the Colorado Rockies. His interest in cowboy poetry came early from a shoebox where his grandmother had collected poems cut out of The Western Livestock Journal and other local and livestock papers. He began writing at age 11 when confined with polio in 1951. In his keynote address at the 2022 Gathering, Vess said, "The wealthy and connected have scholars and historians to write volumes recording and preserving their culture. The rest of us have poems, songs and stories." Vess was interviewed by Andy Hedges on Cowboy Crossroads, episode 48.

Brigid Reedy is a singer, songwriter, fiddler, banjo player, poet, and storyteller who is a force in Western Americana music and poetry. She has been a natural and charismatic performer since the age of two. Now twenty-three, her writing draws considerably from her experience as a young woman living and working in her Montana home and the contemporary rural West. Brigid is joined by her younger brother, Johnny "Guitar" Reedy, whose physical stature and musical skills belie his age. At eighteen years old, he is a multi-instrumentalist with the subtlety of a mature artist and now a full-fledged collaborator with his sister, assisting in arranging music for their cowboy, western swing, gypsy jazz, and blues repertoire. Brigid and Johnny have recorded two albums together, Handmade (2018) and most recently Next 'Go Round (2020). Brigid can be heard on Cowboy Crossroads, episode 86.

Both Brigid and Johnny are currently full-time students at the University of Montana Western in Dillon, Montana, where Johnny is studying English and music. Brigid is pursuing a double-major in English and natural horsemanship (known colloquially in the Reedy house as a "cowboy poetry degree"). In Dillon, Brigid and Johnny also apprentice with local master saddlemaker, George Holt.

---

Lots to look forward to!

All the best,
Kay and Gene Nowell
Co-Chairs
Lone Star Cowboy Poetry Gathering

P.S. Supper ticket sales end tomorrow evening. Join us at the Civic Center for chicken-fried sirloin (Thursday), taco pie (Friday), and pot roast (Saturday). Reserve your seat now if you would like to eat with us!

back to list of newsletters