40th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering

Ticket Type Ticketed

10:00am PST

Two-Step & Jitterbug

Saturday February 1, 2025 10:00am - 12:00pm PST

Flag View Intermediate School

SOLD OUT

If you can count to six, you’re ready to master two dance rhythms for the price of one. Glide around the room to the boom-shik-ka of your favorite two-step. This western classic will have you snuggling close to your sweetie. Then, jitterbug your heart out to the jumpier six-count beats. Whether you call it jive, lindy, or swing, this versatile dance lets you romp to western swing and rockabilly, hot jazz and sultry blues. You provide the feet and Amy Mills will show you the moves while Wylie & the Wild West show you the beat. Get two-stepping and swinging in time for Saturday’s dance. All levels welcome. No partner necessary.

Artists & Special Guests

Amy Mills

Amy Mills, a soul who simply cannot stay still when music is playing, returns to the Gathering every year to share her love of traditional dance with others. She is an accomplished dancer of many traditional styles, ranging from ballroom to Balkan, swing to Scandinavian. A past National... Read More →

Wylie & the Wild West

Wylie Gustafson is an American original. He was born into a fourth-generation ranching family on the empty sprawl of northern Montana. A singer, songwriter, rancher, horseman, and world-famous Yahoo! Yodeler, Wylie has led the musical outfit known as Wylie & the Wild West for over... Read More →

Saturday February 1, 2025 10:00am - 12:00pm PST
Flag View Intermediate School 777 Country Club Dr, Elko, NV 89801, USA

Ticket Type Ticketed

1:00pm PST

Ranch Family Show

Saturday February 1, 2025 1:00pm - 2:15pm PST

Horses may be glamorous and flashy, galloping long distances and smoothly jumping barriers to get us where we’re going. But mules, with their fortitude and bullheadedness, take us all the places we’d never get without provisions and patience. Some say horses are smoother, while mules are smarter. Some say horses are more ready, while mules are more steady. We say, sometimes you need a bit of both. Juni Fisher, Brenn Hill, Andy Nelson, Kye Rieff, and Sandy Seaton Sallee bring you an entertaining, equine-heavy afternoon of music and verse in tribute to mules and horses, and the places they carry us.

Sponsored by John G. Searle Family Trust

Artists & Special Guests

Juni Fisher

Growing up in a central California farming family, Juni Fisher participated in 4-H and FFA. She captained her college horse show team, then worked for a reined cow horse trainer before hanging her own shingle and winning her first Snaffle Bit Futurity. While working for a cutting... Read More →

Brenn Hill

For more than three decades, Brenn Hill has stood under a cowboy hat and behind a microphone on countless stages blending his voice with bending guitar strings in a performance style all his own. He uses lyrical language to peel back the layers of life in the West to reveal a more... Read More →

Andy Nelson

Andy Nelson is an energetic and high-spirited cowboy poet and humorist from Pinedale, Wyoming. As a second-generation farrier raised in Idaho, he traveled the Great Basin with his father on farrier jobs. Now, he and his brother Jim co-host the Clear Out West (C.O.W.) Radio Show weekly... Read More →

Kye Rieff

Kye Rieff’s poetry comes from years spent on the ranch and in the arena, and provides an authentic look into the joy, humor, heartbreak, and hardship of the cowboy life. Kye has ridden saddle broncs, been a professional bullfighter, trained racehorses, started colts, and dayworked... Read More →

Sandy Seaton Sallee

Sandy Seaton Sallee grew up at Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone Park where she drove four-up stagecoaches. She was born into a Montana ranching family and worked ranches in New Mexico after college. Sandy and her husband Scott live in a log cabin above the Yellowstone River in Paradise... Read More →

Saturday February 1, 2025 1:00pm - 2:15pm PST
Elko Convention Center - Auditorium 700 Moren Way, Elko, NV 89801, USA

Ticket Type Ticketed

1:00pm PST

Line Dance (Beginner)

Saturday February 1, 2025 1:00pm - 2:30pm PST

Flag View Intermediate School

Do you feel like you have two left feet? You don’t need elegance, just a willing spirit for this beginner line dancing workshop. Jeff Cunningham will have you kickin’ and stompin’ to the music with simple steps. You will build on these steps to create choreographed movements for different line dances. Jeff is adept at teaching students with little to no experience. He will have you ready to jump in and move with the group at the rodeo, country bar, or any of the many occasions that embrace line dancing. This is an opportunity to learn to dance and get your heart pumping, with or without a partner.

Artists & Special Guests

Jeff Cunningham

Jeff Cunningham was born in Ely, Nevada. After a successful 54-year career as a carpenter, he transitioned to teaching line dance in 2017. Upon his return to Elko County, Jeff has become an active and valued volunteer at the Western Folklife Center. His classes encompass a diverse... Read More →

Saturday February 1, 2025 1:00pm - 2:30pm PST
Flag View Intermediate School 777 Country Club Dr, Elko, NV 89801, USA

Ticket Type Ticketed

2:45pm PST

Cowboy Songs

Saturday February 1, 2025 2:45pm - 4:00pm PST

Join Michael Martin Murphey and a bevy of special guests for this live re-recording of Murph’s quintessential album, Cowboy Songs. First released in 1990, Cowboy Songs (Vol. 1) was a 21-track round up of new hits like “Cowboy Logic” and good ol’ classics like “Goodbye Old Paint.” The first cowboy music album to go gold since Marty Robbins, its success spurred the creation of the Warner Western imprint on the Warner Bros label. Love for cowboy music may ebb and flow among mainstream audiences, but Murph—and his Elko audiences—are steadfast admirers, making the Gathering the ideal place to recapture the album. Warm up your clappers and tune up your yappers—you might just hear yourself on the live recording.

Sponsored by Carole Anderson

Artists & Special Guests

Michael Martin Murphey

For more than 40 years, Michael Martin Murphey has left an indelible mark on the American music landscape by topping the pop, country, bluegrass, and western charts with hits like “Wildfire,” “Carolina in the Pines,” “Geronimo’s Cadillac,” “Boy From the Country... Read More →

Saturday February 1, 2025 2:45pm - 4:00pm PST
Elko Convention Center - Auditorium 700 Moren Way, Elko, NV 89801, USA

Ticket Type Ticketed

3:00pm PST

Line Dance (Advanced)

Saturday February 1, 2025 3:00pm - 4:30pm PST

Flag View Intermediate School

Step up your line dancing skills and learn some moves you can take home to your local honky-tonk. Sherry Hooper will guide you through more intricate turns and steps, starting with step-by-step instructions, before kicking it up a notch by adding fast-paced music. Sherry’s classes are always lively, fun, and full of line dance favorites like “Kick the Dust Up,” “Aww Naw,” “Flatliner,” “If You’re Going Through Hell,” “Any Man of Mine,” and more. Best suited for students who have some previous dance experience, either line dance or other.Boots not required.

Artists & Special Guests

Sherry Hooper

Sherry Hooper grew up in Colorado in a family that loved music and dancing. A resident of Elko for over 10 years, Sherry is an active and enthusiastic volunteer at the Western Folklife Center. Her western line dance classes are a popular offering at the bimonthly Let’s Dance! program... Read More →

Saturday February 1, 2025 3:00pm - 4:30pm PST
Flag View Intermediate School 777 Country Club Dr, Elko, NV 89801, USA

Ticket Type Ticketed

6:00pm PST

Bellyaches & Heartbreaks-A Humor Show?

Saturday February 1, 2025 6:00pm - 7:30pm PST

Making a living in agriculture isn’t for the faint of heart. Nor is it for the humorless. Some days the ups and downs happen with the intensity of a bucking bronc buzzed by a bee. To keep cool while the ranch tests your good nature, it helps to find a little humor in the crises. So, cinch up your sunny disposition and join lovelorn troubadour Doug Figgs, witty wordsmith Yvonne Hollenbeck, self-effacing sonneteer Jarle Kvale, playful poet Jake Riley, and genuine jokester R.P. Smith for an evening that will have both your heart and your sides aching with hysterics.

Sponsored by Blach Distributing Co

Artists & Special Guests

Doug Figgs

Doug Figgs is an AFA Certified Journeyman Farrier, horseman, and western music singer-songwriter from New Mexico. For more than three decades, Doug has lived close to his greatest love—horses! He has shod tens of thousands of steeds, started around a hundred colts, raised cow ponies... Read More →

Yvonne Hollenbeck

Yvonne Hollenbeck is a South Dakota cattleman’s wife who writes poetry about her life on a beautiful, remote ranch where she has spent years putting up hay, feeding a crew, doing bookwork, or working cattle. Although her poetry is often humorous about situations that were not humorous... Read More →

Jarle Kvale

Jarle Kvale turns his experiences with horses, rodeo, and North Dakota rural living into humorous verse. He's been writing cowboy poetry for over 25 years, sharing his stories with friends and family members over trail ride campfires, at various community events, and at cowboy poetry... Read More →

Jake Riley

Jake Riley grew up, for the most part, in the upper Arkansas Valley of the Colorado mountains. He began roping and rodeoing as a kid, which led to helping out at local ranches, which spawned his love for cowboy culture. Jake has always enjoyed rhyming, publishing some of his first... Read More →

R.P. Smith

R.P. Smith is the fourth generation of his family to have the privilege to care for a small part of God's creation in central Nebraska. His poetry and stories are drawn from his own experiences and, on occasion, brought to focus through the lens of past and future generations. Thirty-plus... Read More →

Saturday February 1, 2025 6:00pm - 7:30pm PST
Elko Convention Center - Auditorium 700 Moren Way, Elko, NV 89801, USA

Western Folklife Center - G Three Bar Theater

Ticket Type Ticketed

6:00pm PST

I Held You as a Pup

Saturday February 1, 2025 6:00pm - 7:30pm PST

Love has lasted a lifetime for these pairs. From the first moment they met, they were bound together. By blood or by love, there’s a special connection that forms between generations. One minute, one begins as a mentor holding a baby. The next, that baby is holding them steady. The roles switch back and forth as they bring each other guidance, mentorship, fresh eyes, and new perspectives. Adrian Brannan & Dick Gibford, Dave & Tris Munsick, and Jessie & Gene Veeder honor their lifetimes of shared craft, shared advice, shared admiration, and that greatest gift, shared time together. Join these bonded pairs for an evening of music, poetry, and rapport that’ll hold you close and help you grow.

Sponsored by Red's Ranch

Artists & Special Guests

Adrian Brannan

Adrian Brannan is a chart-topping singer-songwriter who is equally at home in the branding pen, on stage, or on a bucking horse. An author and musician, she is also known for her successful series of publicly written “Dear Cowgirl” letters on social media that spurred an online... Read More →

Dick Gibford

Dick Gibford is still working horseback on the Walking R Ranch in south Central California. He has cowboyed around the West for 30 years, with the past 20 spent on this rough and rugged chunk of real estate that has become his adopted home. With a string of four mountain-raised horses... Read More →

Dave & Tris Munsick

Father and son Dave and Tris Munsick hail from northern Wyoming, where they have ranched and made music together for most of their lives, often as The Munsick Boys with Dave’s other two sons Sam and Ian. Tris trains horses and works in the ag industry, while Dave has run mountains... Read More →

Jessie Veeder

Jessie Veeder writes and sings about the Badlands of western North Dakota where she grew up as the fourth generation on her family’s cattle ranch. She released her first original album at 16 and has gone on to tour nationally, releasing five more original albums and two books about... Read More →

Saturday February 1, 2025 6:00pm - 7:30pm PST
Western Folklife Center - G Three Bar Theater

Western Folklife Center - G Three Bar Theater

Ticket Type Ticketed

8:00pm PST

Be The Poem, Be The Song

Saturday February 1, 2025 8:00pm - 9:30pm PST

Close out the 40th by gathering in the spirit of the Gathering’s essence, by gathering for the good and the true. Here, the creative possibilities are endless. The inspiration of everyday people is epic. The poetic expressions become a medium through which we envision, and enact, new possibilities for the communities that feed us and the communities that are fed. Join musicians Margo Cilker, Sterling Drake, Lara Manzanares, and Ed Peekeekoot, along with all the “old ghosts and young cowpunchers” that haunt these halls, to soak up the artistic life and to conjure the next 40 years.

Sponsored by Alex Benna & Chrissy Menicucci Benna

Artists & Special Guests

Margo Cilker

Singer-songwriter Margo Cilker has spent the last few years on the road—from South Carolina to Montana, to the Basque Country and back to the American West. She says she pines for “Basque wine, music, and cowboys.” Forging a path that is both deeply rooted and ever-changing... Read More →

Sterling Drake

Steeped in the traditions of roots music, songwriter Sterling Drake’s journey has taken him from the Big Cypress of south Florida to the mountains of western Montana and everywhere in between. With a penchant for honest storytelling, Sterling weaves his own perspective into the... Read More →

Lara Manzanares

Lara Manzanares is a bilingual singer-songwriter from Northern New Mexico. She grew up singing the traditional New Mexican boleros, rancheras, and corridos of her sheep-ranching childhood, and composes her own style of music in both English and Spanish. Through a combination of storytelling... Read More →

Ed Peekeekoot

Multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, and storyteller, Ed Peekeekoot is a skilled and seasoned performer who has received much recognition over the years. He has a timeless kind of cool that appeals to audiences of all ages. Ed’s performances go from blazing guitar work to foot... Read More →

Saturday February 1, 2025 8:00pm - 9:30pm PST
Western Folklife Center - G Three Bar Theater

Music, Ticketed

Ticket Type Ticketed

8:00pm PST

Cow Trails & Cowboy Tales

Saturday February 1, 2025 8:00pm - 9:30pm PST

Isolated in the vast backcountry for large periods of time, entertainment for cowboys consisted (and still consists) of spinning yarns, crafting poetry, and passing the time in song. These compadres recreate the creative recreation and cultural production of the cattle trail. Dom Flemons provides sustenance around the campfire with his songster lore. Ross Knox drives tradition with his poetic stylings. Matt Robertson wrangles the musical wilds with his bronc scholarship. Trinity Seely keeps the crew in high spirits with her whistling ways. And, Gail Steiger refuses to let a verse straggle behind. They’ll transport you to the space where the oral tradition we know as cowboy poetry began, in the cow camp and along the cow trail.

Sponsored by The Nature Conservancy-Nevada

Artists & Special Guests

Dom Flemons

Dom Flemons is a GRAMMY-winning songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, music scholar, slam poet, podcaster, and creator and host of the American Songster Radio Show on WSM in Nashville. Carrying on the songster tradition, Flemons strives to mix a repertoire covering over one hundred years... Read More →

Ross Knox

Ross Knox first aspired to be a cowboy as a little boy, when he watched his father work their ranch in central Oregon. At 16, he quit school and moved to Nevada to buckaroo, where he also began writing poetry to occupy his time alone. He has worked at both the Grand Canyon and Saguaro... Read More →

Matt Robertson

Raised in Wyoming, Matt Robertson grew up on the back of a horse, starting colts as a young teen and riding broncs through his youth. He has been writing and playing music since the age of 16 and credits Ian Tyson and Chris LeDoux for his inspiration. In his earlier years, Matt made... Read More →

Trinity Seely

Trinity Seely's life has taken her to many different places, from the Chilcotin of British Columbia to the high deserts of central Wyoming to the Big Belts outside Cascade, Montana. She now lives in Ojai, California, where she is Director of The Thacher School’s Horse Program. Living... Read More →

Gail Steiger

Gail Steiger, foreman of the 50,000-acre Spider Ranch in Yavapai County, Arizona, has been playing guitar and writing songs for over 30 years. He has released two albums, The Romance of Western Life and A Matter of Believin’. A talented filmmaker, Gail produced and directed the... Read More →

Saturday February 1, 2025 8:00pm - 9:30pm PST
Elko Convention Center - Auditorium 700 Moren Way, Elko, NV 89801, USA