Jeanne Bowman – illustratör

Georgia Hoyt Jipp (1926–1987) spent her childhood in and around small airplanes in western South Dakota. She loved flying. Despite her petite size, she earned her pilot's license at age nineteen.In 1948, at age twenty-two, she married Richard Jipp. Their wedding took place in an airplane circling above Philip, South Dakota, while wedding guests listened in on the radio.A blizzard struck on January 2, 1949, ushering in three months of snowstorms that ranked as the worst in the state's history. Georgia answered the desperate pleas of ranchers, parents of sick children, and the American Red Cross, flying over 150 rescue missions during those three long months of snowstorms—more than anyone else in the state! She was a blizzard pilot hero.

Badger Clark (1883–1957), South Dakota’s first poet laureate, is best known for his “A Cowboy’s Prayer,” erroneously attributed to Anonymous and a mainstay at rodeos across the United States. After spending much of his childhood in Deadwood, SD, Badger escaped a harrowing experience in Cuba and then found his vocation as a cowboy and a poet in Arizona. He had a way of expressing that smooth, rolling, clip-clop rhythm of horse and rider. Flood describes Badger’s poetry as “Shakespeare meets Walt Whitman during a cattle drive.” Badger Clark’s legacy as a bard of the American West endures. For over one hundred years, Badger Clark’s poems have been sung and celebrated at poetry gatherings, rodeos, and many a cowboy’s final farewell. His plain and simple verses spoke of his love for the land and a deep appreciation for a life lived close to nature. Badger Clark: Poetry Wrangler tells the story of this iconic Western writer and celebrates his enduring poetry.