“Culture, Traditions, Talent”
Western Folklife Center Board Member Kristi Overgaard (proprietor of Oniya Ranch) answered a few questions for us about her personal story, what draws her to the WFC, and why she thinks the WFC is important for everyone. For Kristi, it’s about culture, traditions, talent…and finding that different pace.
Tell us your (personal) story about life in the rural West.
I am blessed to be a fourth-generation Montanan. I am grateful for the values that I grew up with around being Montana-real, bringing a strong work ethic to my career, helping neighbors, and doing what is right even when no one was watching. The values of the rural West run deep in our family. My father taught me the love of land, the animals, who homesteaded where, and who their sisters, brothers, cousins, and parents were while driving country roads with a couple of bird dogs drooling on the back of our truck seats. We watched the weather, bred too many horses, and never really sold any horses. We love our horses.
Life circumstances brought me out of Montana to experience Nevada with country-western dancing, big city experiences, boundless possibilities, challenging careers, and beautiful people. Montana drew me back home three years ago and while the Montana roots never left me or my actions, coming home feels like a soulful reunion with the Beartooth Mountains, family, dirt roads, country traditions, seas of cowboy hats, bales of hay, and of course more horses!
What has the WFC brought to your life?
WFC is a beautiful way for me to never lose sight of what made and continues to make those rural western roots so important to everyone and anyone from any background. For me, the storytelling with insights into a simpler, harder, and all the while more beautiful life, bring those beautiful values front and center for me to remember and realize that less can be so much more. Being present on the land, communing and partnering with animals, collaborating with neighbors, and living in gratitude for nature, family, music, and the emotions that come with being alive are so beautifully woven at every event that WFC presents. The most important thing that WFC has given me was the experience of sharing the Gathering with my father who was beyond proud of my involvement with something that means the world to him. He never wants the rural western ways to be abandoned.
Describe the WFC in three words.
Culture, Traditions, Talent
What do you think is the WFC's most significant impact?
Keeping rural western ways illuminated and shared with all cultures in a way that sends participants off with a different pace and a large dose of grace.
