Reba McEntire to receive Lifetime Achievement Award at OKC's Western Heritage Awards
Following in her daddy's footsteps, iconic entertainer Reba McEntire will receive a high honor at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum's 63rd annual Western Heritage Awards in Oklahoma City.
The Country Music Hall of Famer will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award during the star-studded April 13 event.
Plus, "Yellowstone" cast member Mo Brings Plenty, the Lakota actor who served last year as the master of ceremonies for the Western Heritage Awards, will garner the inaugural New Horizon Award. Fellow actors Keith Carradine, the late Noah Beery Jr. (1913-1994) and the late John Smith (1931-1995) will be inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers at the OKC museum.
“We are thrilled to announce the exceptional inductees and award recipients for this year's Western Heritage Awards,” said Pat Fitzgerald, the museum's president and CEO, in a statement. “Each individual being honored embodies the spirit of the American West in their own unique way, contributing to its rich tapestry of culture and history. We’re excited to celebrate and honor their vast talent and contributions for generations to come.”
What are the Western Heritage Awards?
At the Western Heritage Awards, people who have made remarkable contributions to Western heritage through their creative endeavors in literature, music, television and film are honored.
The event also serves as the induction ceremony for the National Cowboy Museum’s Hall of Great Western Performers and Hall of Great Westerners. Honors like the Lifetime Achievement Award and Chester A. Reynolds Award are presented, too.
Each Western Heritage Awards winner and inductee receives a "Wrangler," a bronze sculpture of a cowboy on horseback created by the late Oklahoma artist Harold T. Holden, a 2017 Hall of Great Westerners inductee.
Reba McEntire's Lifetime Achievement Award strengthens her family's Western Heritage Awards ties
Reba will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Western Heritage Awards fresh off her celebrated performance of the national anthem at Super Bowl LVIII, which marked the 50th anniversary of her breakthrough performance of "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the 1974 National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City.
At the 2023 Western Heritage Awards, the superstar made a video appearance in honor of Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Red Steagall, who helped the small-town farm girl from Chockie launch her recording career after hearing her national anthem performance at the 1974 NFR.
But Reba and the McEntire clan's ties to the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, formerly known as the Cowboy Hall of Fame, don't end there: The superstar and her family gathered at the 2019 Western Heritage Awards as her father, National Rodeo Hall of Famer Clark McEntire (1927-2014), was posthumously ushered into the Hall of Great Westerners.
“It’s a part of our heritage, with the Cowboy Hall of Fame,” Reba said at the 2019 ceremony. “I grew up on a working cattle ranch, and I’m a third-generation rodeo brat. So, that speaks to the whole McEntire family."
As a country music legend, Reba has scored 35 career No.1 singles, sold in excess of 58 million albums worldwide and earned more than 50 awards, including Grammys, Academy of Country Music Awards, Country Music Association Awards and more. In 2018, she became the second Oklahoman lauded at the Kennedy Center Honors.
Over the course of her multimedia career, Reba also has been a Golden Globe-nominated television and film actress, a Broadway star, a fashion icon and a savvy entrepreneur. Last year, she became a successful restaurateur with the opening of her Reba's Place in Atoka, and her new book "Not That Fancy" landed her on the New York Times bestseller list.
The Oklahoma native is returning as a coach for Season 25 of NBC's "The Voice," which premieres Feb. 26, and Deadline reports that she is reuniting with the team behind her hit 2001-07 sitcom "Reba" to create a new comedy pilot for NBC in collaboration with Universal Television.
Along with a "Wrangler" bronze, the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award receives a commemorative three-piece Western buckle set created by Traditional Cowboy Arts Association silversmiths Scott Hardy and Beau Compton.
'Yellowstone' actor to receive inaugural New Horizon Award
Mo Brings Plenty will receive the first New Horizon Award, to be bestowed upon a living individual who has shown exceptional promise and made a significant impact in the Western genre while demonstrating the values and integrity of Western culture.
An enrolled Lakota citizen who hails from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, he is best known for his self-titled role as Chief Thomas Rainwater's (Gil Birmingham) enforcer on Taylor Sheridan's record-breaking series "Yellowstone."
His other acting credits include the blockbuster sequel "Jurassic World Dominion," the Peabody Award-winning limited series "The Good Lord Bird" and two portrayals of Charlie Soap, the husband of the late Wilma Mankiller, in the movies "The Cherokee Word for Water" and "The Glorias."
What stage and screen roles have this year's Hall of Great Western Performers inductees played?
This year's Hall of Great Western Performers inductees — Keith Carradine, the late Noah Beery Jr. (1913-1994) and the late John Smith (1931-1995) — have played a wide range of stage and screen roles.
Part of the famed Carradine acting family, Keith Carradine made his Broadway debut in the iconic 1969 rock musical "Hair," appeared with his brother, David Carradine, in various episodes of the cult series "Kung Fu" and played Western roles in the television series "Deadwood" as well as the movies "A Gunfight," "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" and "The Long Riders," co-starring David and Robert Carradine. He won an Oscar for best original song for "I'm Easy," from the 1975 movie "Nashville," earned a Primetime Emmy nomination for the 1983 miniseries "Chiefs" and garnered a Tony nomination for his titular turn in the Broadway musical "The Will Rogers Follies."
Character actor Noah Beery Jr. also came from an acting family that included his father, Noah Beery, and his uncle, Wallace Beery. He is perhaps best remembered for playing the father of James Garner's character on the TV show "The Rockford Files." Beery died in 1994 at age 81.
Born Robert Errol Van Orden, John Smith joined the Robert Mitchell Boys Choir as a youth, and the group appeared in two Bing Crosby movies, 1944's "Going My Way" and 1945's "The Bells of St. Mary's." He went on to appear in notable films like "The High and the Mighty" and in Western series "Cimarron City" and "Laramie." He died in 1995 at age 63.
Who will be added this year to the Hall of Great Westerners?
Oklahoman Jack LeForce, a prominent figure in the agricultural community who once worked as a ranch foreman for John Wayne, will be added to the Hall of Great Westerners at this year's Western Heritage Awards.
Legendary Texas cowboy Buster Welch (1928-2022), who is already part of the National Cutting Horse Association Members Hall of Fame, the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame and the Texas Cowboys Hall of Fame, also will be posthumously inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners. During a cameo on Season 4 of "Yellowstone," he was called “one of the three gods in the state of Texas." Welch died in 2022 at age 94.
Who will receive the Chester A. Reynolds Award at this year's Western Heritage Awards?
During this year's Western Heritage Awards, Don Reeves will receive the Chester A. Reynolds Award, named in honor of the museum's founder.
Reeves was on the curatorial staff of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum for 38 years until he retired in 2018 and moved to Williamsburg, Virginia.
Can you get tickets to the 2024 Western Heritage Awards?
Due to limited space and overwhelming support from the award recipients’ families and friends, the National Cowboy Museum has announced that tickets to the awards dinner are not available for purchase at this time.
For more information, go to nationalcowboymuseum.org/western-heritage-awards.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Reba McEntire to receive major award at Western Heritage Awards in OKC
