The wonderful, colorful National Cowboy Poetry Gathering convenes for its 30th year Jan. 27-Feb.1 in Elko, Nev., and this time around will focus on the future of rural agricultural communities and the next generation of cowboys and ranchers. Jessie Veeder, a 29-year-old who writes and sings about life on the family ranch in North Dakota, will be among the artists there to celebrate traditions of ranching and cowboy culture in the American West. A gallery exhibition will also bring together more than 50 leather carvers, rawhide braiders, metal workers and the like, all under the age of 40. In addition to poetry, music, handcrafted gear, hands-on workshops and films, the poetry gathering, put on by the Western Folklife Center, will offer discussions about how to keep young people working on the ranch and how those who have stayed are making ends meet.

Tickets to the 30th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering can be purchased at www.westernfolklife.org, by calling 775-738-7508, toll-free 888-880-5885, or by stopping in to the Western Folklife Center's ticket office, 501 Railroad Street, Elko.