Hill Country Livestock Raisers Association will hold their annual banquet Saturday, May 3, 2008 at the Community Center in Llano. Featured speaker will be renowned cowboy poet and author Linda Kirkpatrick.

Born and raised on a ranch in South Central Texas Linda uses her ranch life experience as the foundation to write cowboy poetry and western stories.

She has been an invited performer at The National Cowboy Symposium in Lubbock; Texas Cowboy Poetry Gathering at Alpine; The National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, Elko, NV., the Cowboy Symposium in Camp Wood, Texas; George West Storyfest in George West, Texas; the Ft. Worth Stock Show & Rodeo, and the Colorado Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Arvada and many others. She has performed at state parks, schools, other poetry festivals and for business and private groups. New this year will be the 2008 Monterey Cowboy Poetry & Music Festival, Monterey, California and the Chama Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Chama, New Mexico.

Linda has received the top Reciter awards at the Western Legends Roundup and Cowboy Poetry Rodeo in Kanab, Utah and recently won the High Point Poet Award at the Cowboy Poetry Rodeo in Hot Springs, South Dakota..

She has written two historical chapbooks. Her own CD, Beneath a Western sky was released in 2005 and she has been included on the Bar D Roundup I and III. She is a columnist for Texas Escapes Online Magazine and conducts cowboy poetry writing workshops.

Her home is in Leakey, Texas.