Cowboy poet A.K. Moss brings ranching stories to Baker City center

That matters at a place built to preserve living history. The 500-acre interpretive center, just off Highway 86, reopened in 2024 after renovations and interprets the Oregon Trail experience through a replica wagon camp, original wagon ruts and the remains of the historic Flagstaff Gold Mine. The center’s folklife series, which runs from April through October and is tied to America’s 250th anniversary, is meant to keep those stories active, not locked behind glass.

Moss fits that mission closely. The Oregon Folklife Network describes her as a cowboy poet, buckaroo, horse trainer and rancher from Prairie City, and her own work comes out of the same kind of labor that shaped Baker County’s ranching country. She developed part of her storytelling by writing down the stories of Roy Saul, her second dad, and turning them into rhyme. One session will focus on children in agriculture and ranch life, another on Western women, and the third on ranches and the people who live on them. Moss has said the storytelling can work one-on-one or in front of a room, and the humor in her work, including a story about roping a goose, gives the tradition its bite.

The residency is also designed to reach beyond a single audience. Moss’s poetry and stories have traveled across the United States and Canada, and she has shared them with high school and FFA groups as well as public audiences. Her honors include the International Western Music Association’s Female Poet Circle of Excellence in 2019, top-five Female Poet nominations in 2020 and 2025, the 2017 Keeper of the West award in Kamloops, British Columbia, and the 2018 Columbia River Cowboy Poetry Gathering People’s Choice Award.