Nominate an Outstanding Western Artist for an Award

Know someone whose 2025 work deserves recognition? Nominate them for one or more of the 71 awards offered by the Academy of Western Artists. Our revised award process allows anyone to nominate. The Academy will reach out to all nominees to request submissions of information for consideration (voting and judging). Completed submissions and Academy professional membership are required in order for a nomination to move forward to the voting stage.

Self-nomination is allowed, and anyone who submitted information for 2025 work under our former process will be considered to have self-nominated.

See list of current nominees.

Jill Kirkham: radio DJ, musician, artist

Jill Kirkham is a singer, bassist, harmonica player, and storyteller who typically performs with her husband, Allen Kirkham, as part of the duo Allen & Jill. Jill provides vocals, bass, harmonica, and storytelling for the duo as they perform traditional Western music.

She is also a DJ, as they have co-hosted the award-winning Circuit Rider Roundup With Allen & Jill show on American Cowboy Radio since 2021, playing two hours of Western gospel and poetry.

Jill is a professional artist and graphic designer, a photographer, a retired high school teacher and golf coach, and an award-winning amateur golfer. Along with Allen, she is a member of the South Dakota Mounted US Marshals Posse providing mounted traffic control at major events in the Black Hills.

Allen & Jill are Academy of Western Artists 2019 Western Group of the Year Award recipients and 2019 Legends of Dakota Country Music Hall of Fame inductees. As South Dakota Humanities Scholars since 2018, they present a musical performance of "A History Of Traditional Western Music" at Western heritage centers, museums, historical societies, national parks, and state parks throughout South Dakota.

Carson Houser, cowboy poet

Carson Houser is a rancher, bull rider, agriculture teacher, and cowboy poet from McClusky, North Dakota. Raised working in his family's cow-calf operation, Carson developed a passion for ranching and cowboy culture, which led him to writing his own poetry to document his life and experiences. In September of 2021, he published Branding in the Rain: A Collection of Ranching & Rodeo Poetry, and released his first CD Another Iron on the Fire in July of 2022. Together with his wife Mattie, and poet Jonathan Odermann and his wife Marie, he is working to continue the Dakota Cowboy Poetry Gathering in historic Medora, North Dakota.

Carson was the 2023 recipient of the Buck Ramsey Award from the Lone Star Cowboy Poetry Gathering, presented to an "individual who demonstrates significant promise to contribute to the cowboy canon including poetry, music, and story." He has been interviewed in Western Horseman magazine, and featured twice at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada with his performances of both original pieces and cowboy poetry classics.