August 28, 2017
K-Staters featured in national magazine about western writing and performing
Jeff Davidson, K-State Research and Extension specialist, and Ron Wilson, director of K-State's Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development, are featured in a national magazine about organizations that support writers and performers of western music and poetry.
"There is help and support for those who want to write about the American West," Wilson said.
Support organizations for western writers are chronicled in an article by Wilson. The article appeared in the summer 2017 Western Way magazine, the official publication of the Western Music Association.
"The spirit of the west is an important part of Kansas history, as well as contemporary life in rural Kansas," Wilson said. "It should be shared through western music and cowboy poetry."
Wilson's article described Davidson, a regional water resources specialist for K-State Research and Extension in Eureka, who also is a western musician and past president of the Kansas Chapter of the Western Music Association.
"Jeff has given outstanding leadership to the efforts to honor and encourage the creation and performance of western music and poetry," Wilson said.
Since 1988, the national Western Music Association has sought to encourage and support the "preservation, performance, and composition of historic traditional and contemporary music and poetry of the west." A Kansas chapter was formed in 2009. In 2011, an additional national chapter of the association was created called Western Wordsmiths, which is specifically for writers and poets. Wilson's article, which originally appeared in the Grass & Grain, chronicles this development.
"I think all writers can benefit from peer support and critique," Wilson said. "Such support is definitely important as we celebrate and share the history of the West in rural Kansas."