Reba explains romance of West, Mo Brings Plenty honors nephew at Western Heritage Awards

Entertainment icon Reba McEntire, Oscar winner Keith Carradine and rising Native American star Mo Brings Plenty were the headliners at the 63rd Annual Western Heritage Awards.

And they proved big draws: About 1,000 people packed the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum's Sam Noble Special Events Center in Oklahoma City April 13 to honor the past year's acclaimed releases in Western literature, music, television and film and induct new members into the Hall of Great Westerners and Hall of Great Western Performers.

This year's ceremony also brought back favorite Western celebrities like actors Barry Corbin, Bruce Boxleitner, Patrick Wayne, along with musicians R.W. Hampton and Red Steagall. The latter is credited with helping Reba launch her storied career.

Plus, "Dark Winds" cast members Kiowa Gordon, A Martinez and Nicholas Logan took the stage as the hit AMC series was named Outstanding Fictional Drama for the second straight year.

Here are some of the highlights of the 2024 Western Heritage Awards:

Reba McEntire speaks from her heart while emotionally accepting lifetime achievement award

Reba got emotional as she accepted the lifetime achievement award to a raucous standing ovation. She likened this year's Western Heritage Awards to going to church and admitted that she had ignored the advice of her boyfriend, actor and fellow Oklahoman Rex Linn, to write out her speech.

"I said I wanted it to come from my heart, because this is such a special room, a special place for the McEntire family, to so many of my friends," Reba said. "This award means a lot to me. But it's not for me, because this isn't about me. It's about friends. It's about that, by the grace of God, we get to live in this beautiful country and get to gather here today and talk about the Lord."

The Country Music Hall of Famer said she was always captivated by the Western way of life, even when she couldn't quite work out why she and so many others found it so romantic.

"When we'd get up at 4 in the morning to go gather cattle and weigh and ship them out and then go school by 8:15, I couldn't figure out, 'Where is the romantic part of this? This is a lot of hard work.' But I loved to watch the old Western movies, because the cowboys always protected and defended the underdog. That's what I loved about it. That's what cowboys and cowgirls do," she said.

"(That's what) the Western way of life is all about: pulling for your neighbor, reaching out and helping them stand back up when they get knocked down. That's the romantic part about it."

Rex Linn returns as emcee of the Western Heritage Awards

With his girlfriend "Tater Tot McEntire" receiving one of the evening's biggest awards, Linn, who grew up in OKC, returned as master of ceremonies for this year's Western Heritage Awards, after hosting the 2019 and 2021 events.

With the usual irreverent humor and boundless energy he brings to the ceremony, Linn dedicated most of his opening monologue to poking fun at his girlfriend and 2024 Hall of Great Western Performers inductee Keith Carradine, who played a married couple in the 1994 TV movie "Is There Life Out There?"

The funny bit included Linn narrating clips from the telefilm, which was based on Reba's 1992 hit of the same name.

"What in the wide world of sports? Woo-hoo. What was that rated?" Linn quipped as a scene of Reba and Carradine kissing played on the big screens.

Keith Carradine inducted into Hall of Great Western Performers by brother Robert Carradine

An Oscar winner for best original song for "I'm Easy," from the 1975 movie "Nashville," a Primetime Emmy nominee for the 1983 miniseries "Chiefs" and a Tony nominee for his titular turn in the Broadway musical "The Will Rogers Follies," Keith Carradine also is part of the famed Carradine acting family.

As he was ushered into the Hall of Great Western Performers by Linn and his brother, fellow actor and producer Robert Carradine, he said he decided he could only accept the honor "on the condition that it is understood that I am standing here on the shoulders" of his father, John, and his brothers, David and Robert.

"David said it first: We all started in this business 10 feet tall, standing on our dad's shoulders. And I have benefited enormously from being a member of this family," Keith Carradine said.

"I'm also of the generation that came of age during the heyday of television Westerns: 'Gunsmoke,' 'Maverick,' 'Rawhide,' 'Wagon Train.' ... These influences — along with my first film role being in the Western 'A Gunfight' withKirk Douglas and Johnny Cash — all invoke my deep affinity for this quintessentially American genre."

Over the course of his long and diverse career, he said, "it remains to this day that my favorite place to be is practicing my craft in front of a camera on a horse somewhere in the breathtaking West of this magnificent country."

'Yellowstone' actor Mo Brings Plenty receives first New Horizon Award

"Yellowstone" and "Jurassic World Dominion" actor Mo Brings Plenty, an enrolled Lakota citizen, received the first New Horizon Award at the gala with another enthusiastic standing O.

Presenting the award, Grammy nominee Michael Martin Murphey praised Brings Plenty as "a holy man of his people" who "embodies within one man the cowboy and Western Heritage which this museum honors."

The New Horizon Award is to be bestowed upon a living person who has shown exceptional promise and made a significant impact in the Western genre while demonstrating the values and integrity of Western culture. In accepting the honor, Brings Plenty recalled riding horses and praying at a fire during his childhood on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

"In spite of what we've endured ... we are warriors, and we are cowboys — and we keep smiling. And I'm thankful to the higher power, whatever name you have for that higher power," he said. "It is apparent that the higher power is the one who created diversity from the very get-go: If it weren't so, there'd only one race of people and only one species of trees and one species of mammals."

He encouraged the audience "to be the living prayer versus just saying the prayer."

"It is the way of Western heritage; it is the way of the Indian culture. ... As I stand before you, I am very humbled and I am very vulnerable. But I will never take my heart off my sleeve, because that's where I want God to see it. And I want you to see it also," he said.

"Love one another. Protect each other. Remember, it is not a moment that we're judged; it is the life and how we leave others and how we care for each other."

During his heartfelt speech, Brings Plenty dedicated his New Horizon Award to his late nephew and fellow actor Cole Brings Plenty, who died earlier this month at age 27.

Western Heritage Awards remember Toby Keith and Harold T. Holden

Wyatt McCrea, chairman of the board of directors of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, and Pat Fitzgerald, the museum's president and CEO, opened the ceremony by remembering to "some very dear friends of the museum who have passed since we were last together," including Oklahoma country music superstar Toby Keith, celebrated Sooner State artist Harold T. Holden, Olympic gold medal winner and former Hollywood stuntman Dean Smith and fourth-generation rancher Linda Mitchell Davis.

Keith, who died Feb. 5 at the age of 62 after a multi-year battle with stomach cancer, hosted the 2014 Western Heritage Awards.

An acclaimed sculptor and painter based in Kremlin, Holden, who died Dec. 6, 2023, at the age of 83, created the bronze "Wrangler" sculpture that Western Heritage Awards winners receive.

A movie stuntman who worked with the likes of John Wayne, Roy Rogers and Paul Newman, Smith received the lifetime achievement award at the 2007 Western Heritage Awards. Also a sprinter who won gold at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, the Texan died June 24, 2023, at the age of 91.

A longtime museum board member, Davis, who received the lifetime achievement award in 2022, died Feb. 18 at her home on her New Mexico ranch. She was 93.

Riders in the Sky's Ranger Doug yodels through his winning Western composition

The Western Heritage Awards wouldn't be the same without a little yodeling, and Ranger Doug of the venerable music and comedy group Riders in the Sky smilingly did just that as he performed his song "The Shelter of the Wildwood," which won the Wrangler for Outstanding Original Western Composition.

"I'm extremely proud to say this is the third time I've won this particular award in this category. The last time was in 1992. Which proves one thing: I'm old," Ranger Doug joked in his acceptance speech.

The winning song is included on the band's 42nd album, "Throw a Saddle on a Star," released last summer, and Ranger Doug thanked his fellow Riders in the Sky: bassist Too Slim, fiddler Woody Paul and accordionist Joey, the CowPolka King.

"I want to emphasize that this song would be just some words scribbled on paper if it wasn't for my three incredibly talented partners," he said. "The success of this song is a team effort from start to finish, even though mine is the only name on the fancy trophy."

John Wayne's granddaughter honors his one-time ranch manager

Oklahoman Jack LeForce, 95, a prominent figure in the agricultural community, received a standing ovation as he was added to the Hall of Great Westerners.

Alongside Steagall, Anita La Cava Swift, John Wayne's granddaughter, said it was her honor to usher LeForce into the hall. For 12 years, LeForce and his family lived on the 26 Bar Ranch in Arizona owned by her famous grandfather. LeForce worked as the ranch's general manager.

"He took his ranch into the 21st century," Swift said of LeForce.

Longtime curator celebrates date-night milestone along with prestigious award

Not only did Don Reeves receive the Chester A. Reynolds Award, named in honor of the museum's founder, at the ceremony, but he and his wife, Val, also celebrated the 50th anniversary of their first date at the gala.

Reeves was on the curatorial staff of the National Cowboy Museum for 38 years, until he retired in 2018 and moved to Williamsburg, Virginia. Attending the event with his wife of almost 48 years, their two sons, his sister and brother-in-law, he earned a standing ovation along with the award.

"As a young man, I fell in love with the West out in Cimarron, New Mexico. ... The majesty of the West, it really just took a breath away — and it's never come back," Reeves said. "I'm a firm believer in Western exceptionalism recognizing that the North American West is unique — unique in that it reflects a kaleidoscope of people ... that share identity of place, of past, of pride and of purpose. The West lives on in us; those that have gone before us, now rely on us."

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Western Heritage Awards honors Reba McEntire, Toby Keith, Keith Carradine