CACHE COUNTY – Country artist Paul Overstreet will headline the long list of talent slated to appear at the 15th Annual Cache Valley Cowboy Rendezvous.
The week-long event will take place from Monday, March 3 to Sunday, March 9 at the Cache County Event Center.
A two-time Grammy Award winner and Songwriter Hall of Fame inductee, the concert by Overstreet is scheduled to climax the Cowboy Rendezvous at 7 p.m. on Saturday, March 8.
The talented performer will appear with another award-winning western singer/songwriter Doug Figgs from New Mexico and cowboy poet RP Smith from Nebraska.
Event organizer Dale Major says that Overstreet has penned numerous hits for well-known performers like Randy Travis, Blake Shelton, Kenny Chesney, Tanya Tucker, Allison Krauss, the Judds and George Jones.
Overstreet has also released albums that have cemented his reputation as a solo artist.
“He’s a very talented performer,” Major emphasizes. “We’re lucky to have him come perform for us.”
The annual rendezvous is intended to promote Utah’s rich western and agricultural culture through music, poetry, art, dance and education at locations throughout Cache Valley, including the classrooms of local public schools.
The cowboy gathering will kick off with two free-to-the-public concerts at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, March 3 and Wednesday, March 5. Valley residents will have the opening of attending those events in person or online at www.cvcowboy.org
Thanks to a generous grant from the Sorenson Legacy Foundation, many of the musicians and poets here for the rendezvous will visit local classrooms during the week starting March 3 to provide educational outreach to Cache County schoolchildren in the form of high-quality western music and poetry sessions.
At the Cowboy Rendezvous at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 6, the concert headliner will be country artist Suzy Boggus.
Major says that Ms. Boggus is a Grammy winner and has had multiple hits over the years, including “Aces,” “Outbound Plane,” “Someday Soon” and “Letting Go,” among others.
The opening act for that concert will be the duo of Kristyn Harris – who is familiar to local audiences as the little lady from Texas with the great big voice – paired with fiddle player and vocalist Hailey Sandoz.
Cowboy poet Andy Nelson is also slated to entertain that evening.
In addition to the main stage concerts, other rendezvous events on Friday, March 7 include a campfire concert at 6:30 p.m.; a Cowboy Family Dance at 7:30 p.m., featuring the Sagwitch Basin Boys and guests; and a swing dance contest at 8:45 p.m.
Events throughout the day on Saturday, March 8 will include kids and adults poetry contests starting at 8 a.m., plus western vendors, food booths, an open microphone stage and a kids’ corral.
The Saturday afternoon entertainment at 2 p.m. will be the “Bar D Wranglers” from Durango, CO taking the concert stage.
“These guys have been around a while,” Major explains. “They put on a show similar to the now retired ‘Bar J Wranglers’ from Jackson Hole.
“We can expect traditional western music coupled with amazing guitar picking and vocal harmonies, with some humor thrown in to boot.”
The opening act for the afternoon concert will be the well-known “Carter Junction” – a husband and wife duo from Idaho – and poet Darrell Holden from central Utah.
The rendezvous events will close out with a western-themed Cowboy Church Service at 10 a.m. on Sunday, March 9.
While many of the rendezvous’ events are free to the public, Major says that tickets to the featured concerts and dances can be obtained at www.cvcowboy.org
A full schedule of the Cache Valley Cowboy Rendezvous events can also be found on that website.