Wallace McRae

Wallace McRae is a third-generation cattle rancher in southeastern Montana and president of Rocker Six Cattle Company. He grew up on his family’s ranch and attended Montana State University, where he earned a BS in zoology. After college, he served in the US Navy before returning to the ranch in 1960.

McRae is a cowboy poet, and his poems are narrative, stemming from an oral tradition. He writes about aspects of ranching life with humor and honesty. His collections of poems include Up North Is Down the Crick (1985), It’s Just Grass and Water (1986), Things of Intrinsic Worth (1989), and Cowboy Curmudgeon and Other Poems (1992). In 2009, he published the memoir Stick Horses and Other Stories of Ranch Life.

McRae was the first cowboy poet to win a National Heritage Award from the National Endowment for the Arts. He has received the Montana Governor’s Award for the Arts and a Distinguished Alumni Award from Montana State University. In 1996, President Clinton appointed him to the National Council of the Arts.