Baxter Black has been described by The New York Times as, “probably the nation’s most successful living poet,” although Black thinks that’s an exaggeration. This cowboy humorist will take the stage at the Museum of Northern Arizona’s annual friendraiser on Saturday, May 27 from 7 to 9 p.m. in Sedona.
MNA’s outdoor event on the lawn at Sedona’s Radisson Poco Diablo Resort is sure to be an evening to appreciate the lighter side of life from a cowboy with both boots on the ground. This no-nonsense, unaffected author and nationally-syndicated weekly western columnist seems to effortlessly boil life down, finding the remarkable in the everyday with his own brand of humor.The Washington Post says of Black, “He could make a dead man sit up and laugh.”
Black grew up in Las Cruces, New Mexico and became a large animal veterinarian. In his mid-thirties he gave speaking engagements at agricultural banquets on the side and “people just kept calling.” He says it was “just sort of an accident” that he became a poet. “I thought I was a songwriter.” Black can also be heard on National Public Radio and seen on RFD-TV, the 24-hour satellite and cable TV network for rural America, horse lovers, farmers, and ranchers.
Baxter Black is the real thing, “because it’s hard to be what you aren’t.” He lives in Benson, Arizona, “between the Gila River and the Gila monster, the Mexican border and the Border Patrol, and between the horse and the cow―where the action is.” He still doesn’t own a television or a cell phone. And everything about Black is cowboy: his hat, his mustache, his personality, and his humor.
Tickets for “An Evening with Baxter Black” are $30 for Museum members and $35 for nonmembers. Members’ tickets are available only at the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff or by calling 928/774-5211, ext. 219. Nonmember $35 tickets are available at Olsen’s Grain locations (Flagstaff, Dewey, Clarkdale, Chino Valley, and Prescott) and at Poco Diablo.
Because parking at the Poco Diablo is limited, bus shuttles to the hotel will operate beginning at 6 p.m. from the Jewish Community Center and Christ Lutheran Church off of Highway 179, between Meadowlark and West Chapel Road. Please carpool to the shuttle sites, if possible.
MNA’s annual friendraiser is sponsored, in part, by KNAU Arizona Public Radio. Proceeds will benefit research, collections, and educational efforts to inspire a sense of love and responsibility for the beauty and diversity of the Colorado Plateau.