Kay Kelley Nowell, Consulting Board member
Poet
Photo: Jessica Brandi Lifland
Kay Kelley Nowell has raised and trained Quarter Horses and some other breeds for most of her life. She was the first girl on the livestock judging team at New Mexico State University. After leaving graduate school there to marry her first husband, the late Jack Sanderson, a cowboy poet, she cowboyed for ZR Hereford Ranch in the early 1980s. When she was in Santa Fe, New Mexico with her second husband, the late Bryan Kelley, she day worked for nearby ranches. Her own poetry writing began there from rancher friends' requests for poems.
Her poems come from her experiences of breaking colts, working cattle and the cowboys she has known. They have been published in ten anthologies. She also enjoys reciting the classics by her favorite poets.
Kay has taken part in many cowboy poetry gatherings, from the first one in Elko to her current favorite regional events. In 1989, she recited one of her poems on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson but much prefers the down-home atmosphere and authenticity of the traditional gatherings. She treasures the friends she has made through cowboy poetry.
She loves to day work and to help neighbors with their cattle. She and her husband, Gene Nowell, ran their own Gelbvieh cow/calf herd on leased country until the drought stopped that. In 2010, they purchased Hilltop Livestock, a pre-conditioning and custom feeding operation. They later bought out a pipe and steel business to run along with the feedlot.
In 2011, Kay was invited to be on the committee for the Texas Cowboy Poetry Gathering. She volunteered for that organization until it ended in 2019. It was a tremendous honor and thrill to be the 2019 recipient of the Texas Cowboy Poetry Gathering Heritage Award. In 2019, she joined the Board of Trustees for the Western Folklife Center and greatly appreciated the opportunity to be able to give input on the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada. She served until July 2022.
Since 2019, she has been privileged to serve as Co-Chair of the Lone Star Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Alpine, Texas working with all the terrific board members, advisors, volunteers, and sponsors that make that gathering happen every February.
In her spare time, she enjoys playing bass or rhythm guitar in the No Chicken Wire Band for Big Bend Cowboy Church and working on her fiddling, banjo, and mandolin playing. Her interests include cutting, ranch roping, and defensive handgun classes.