Friday, April 9, 2010

Paying tribute to the cowboy

Hollywood doesn’t have a great track record when it comes to telling the real story of the American cowboy.

We’d put greater trust in a more unusual form of documenting the American west: poetry.

Cowboy Poetry Week is slated for April 18-24 across the country, and there are a variety of activities slated in the northern Black Hills region to help commemorate the cowboy tradition.

Ranging from a “Brown Bag Poetry Reading” at the Matthews Opera House at noon on Wednesday, April 14th to an evening of “Cowboy Culture” at the High Plains Western Heritage Center on Thursday, April 22nd as part of the Heritage of the American West series, there’s a variety of events that are bound to tickle your fancy. Poetry reading events are scheduled at the public libraries in Rapid City, Whitewood, Spearfish, Sturgis and Belle Fourche. Click on the poster shown here for an overview of the many events that are planned.

You'll find details about the Heritage of the American West April 22nd performance in this news release about “
Cowboy Culture.”

Proclamations have been adopted at the state and national level in an effort to give recognition to the Great American Cowboy.