Marleen Bussma
Spur Award winning poet Marleen Bussma was instilled with the love of horses by her father. She grew up wanting to be just like Dale Evans and live in the old West. Marleen, described as a formidable story teller, draws from her past, growing up on a North Dakota farm, while putting together verses on the plight of women of the West from frontier days to modern farm and ranch times. She writes about the rancher as he works and worries hoping to make it through another year. Her writing has earned several honors, including the 2018 & 2016 Cowboy Poetry Book of the Year Awards, a Will Rogers Medallion Award, the Georgie Sicking Award for the best poem that depicts ranch life, and the Spur Award from the Western Writers of America for Best Western Poem. She is retired with her husband Vaughn and lives in Dammeron Valley, UT.