2008 Cowboy Poetry Performer Bios

as of April 1, 2008

For Immediate Release

Student Performers

Brad Clayton is originally from North Webster, Ind.  He is a junior majoring in Plant and Soil Sciences- Crop Sciences.  Brad has been writing cowboy poetry for 8 years. His first public performance was in 2006 at the OSU Cowboy Poetry and Songs Event, where he was chosen as the best student performer. This is Brad’s third public performance.

Tommy Moellering is a member of the OSU Rodeo Association and volunteer at Turning Point Ranch, a therapeutic riding facility.  He is a freshman majoring in Ranch Management.  Tommy has been writing his own poetry for 2-3 years and will be performing a piece of original poetry for the first time at a public event.  Tommy was born in Olustee, Okla., which is southwest of Altus, but was raised in San Antonio, Texas. 

Kalyn Bischoff is originally from Hulett, Wyo., where she grew up on a family cattle ranch. She was actively involved in a 4-state cowboy poetry event at Northwest College, a 2-year college in Powell, Wyo. before coming to OSU.  She has been writing cowgirl poetry since she was 8 years old but has only performed several times. Kalyn is a junior majoring in Animal Science.

Invited Performers

Lyle Newman was born and raised in Stillwater, where he still lives and has his own business. He has been performing original cowboy songs & poetry for over twenty years.  Newman has performed at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nev and at many regional events.

Debra Coppinger Hill.  Debra, an award-winning Cherokee cowgirl poet, manages her family operation, 4DH Ranch near Chelsea, Oklahoma.  They raise cutting and ranch-bred horses, Brahman cross cattle and hay.  Hill was the Academy of Western Artists’ Best Female Poet in 2002. A syndicated columnist, she also writes poetry and song lyrics, all drawn from her daily experiences. Debra has recited her Oklahoma cowgirl poetry in Ireland.

Dale E. Page was born and raised in Oklahoma City. While attending Oklahoma State University, he worked as a horseshoer, dude wrangler, bull rider and on the movie set of "The Cheyenne Social Club." Page majored in English, but after graduation in 1970, he worked as the farm and ranch reporter for the Amarillo Globe News.

Page joined the United States Air Force that fall, later retiring after 20 years of flying fighter-type and trainer aircraft. While in the USAF, his feature articles on Western artists and saddlemakers appeared in The Quarter Horse Journal, The Western Livestock Journal, The Western Horseman and Persimmon Hill, the quarterly magazine of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. Page combined his learned appreciation of poetry with his horseback experiences, beginning to write cowboy poetry in the mid 1970s.

He writes mostly narrative poems and inserts both known and fictional characters into plots taken from actual experiences. In 2005, he self-published a book of his poems, A Fork in the Trail. He has performed for trail rides, charity events, private parties, church classes, cowboy church services, Friends of the Library and the Indiana State Museum.

He was recently named a runner-up for the Lariat Laureate Award at the Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry (cowboypoetry.com) for his poem  "Once We Were Kings." He and his wife, Paula, live in the Indianapolis, Ind. area near their two daughters and four grandchildren. They look forward to a retirement filled with family, trail riding the Rockies and performing cowboy poetry.

Jay Snider is a rancher, team roper, cowboy poet and chuckwagon cook from Cyril, Okla.  Born to a ranching and rodeo family in southwestern Oklahoma, he performs regularly at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko where he was a featured performer in 2006 and 2007. Jay is a six-time nominee for male poet of the year by the Academy of Western Artists. His album Cowboyin’, Horses and Friends was nominated for best poetry album for 2001. In July of the same year, Jay was honored to have been chosen by CowboyPoetry.com to be the fifth Lariat Laureate winner for his poem, “My Old Amigo Lum.” Jay released his second cowboy poetry CD, Of Horses and Men, for which he received Album of the Year from the Academy of Western Artists in 2006. 

Jay has appeared on Country Music Television’s Christmas in Cowboy Country hosted by Clint Black. He was a Silver Buckle winner at Kanab, Utah’s Cowboy Poetry Rodeo, in 2004 and was a feature cowboy poet at the Ozarks Fall Roundup Cowboy Gathering hosted by Shepherd of the Hills Outdoor Theater in Branson, Missouri.

Jay also was a featured cowboy poet in 2005 at the Kamloops Cowboy Festival in Kamloops, British Columbia and at Cal Farley's Youth Poetry Gathering near Amarillo, Texas. He was awarded the "Best of the Best" trophy at Kanab. Jay’s son Jason competed with the OSU Rodeo Association when he was an OSU student in the 1990s.

Jim Garling is a native Oklahoman whose roots were established by his great grandfather in the land run of 1889 near Norman. Jim has the work ethic and commitment of those early pioneers and puts it to good use in teaching and performing.

He lives in historic Guthrie, the first territorial capitol of Oklahoma, and teaches fiddle and guitar lessons at the Double Stop Fiddle Shop. He has about 54 students ranging in ages from 5 to 70.

Audiences young and old enjoy Jim's incredible vocal style, his remarkable guitar skills and the short histories and interesting anecdotes he often tells about the songs he sings. He performs cowboy-era music and music of the cowboy movie stars, as well as music of more contemporary artists who reflect on the cowboy life. His CD, Cattle, Trails, and Romance, reflects all of those styles. His love of this type of music is revealed in all of his performances. His second CD, Here Comes a Change, includes three of Jim's original cowboy songs and others that lean toward western swing.

Jim has performed at numerous venues around the country: The National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma City; Cheyenne Cowboy Symposium, Wyoming; Western Music Association annual meeting, Albuquerque, New Mexico; and in May 2007 Jim was elected President of the Oklahoma Chapter of the WMA.

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