9:50 a.m. - The 20th annual Dakota Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Medora Memorial Day weekend will feature Patty Clayton, the Western Music Association's Female Vocalist of the Year, and Juni Fisher, the 2005 Academy of Western Artists' Female Vocalist of the Year.

The singers will headline sessions at 7:30 p.m. May 27 and May 28 at the Medora Community Center, which also will include performances by cowboy poet Bill Lowman, Sentinel Butte, and Jess Howard, of Marmarth.

Besides music and poetry, the Community Center will be the scene for Western art, big hats and quilts. Artisans and craftsmen expected include Scott Nelson, of Solen, who will do pen and ink sketches, and Slim McNaught, New Underwood, S.D., with leatherwork items.

The Big Hat Society will be on hand to encourage everyone to have a 10-gallon hat day.

Day-session performers are Chris Sand, Killdeer; Ron Crowley, Hazen; Terry Schwartz, Spiritwood; Jim Dalglish, who divides his time between Grand Forks and Sierra Vista, Ariz.; and Killdeer rancher-poet Joe Reems. Approximately 40 other performers, most veterans of the gathering, will recite cowboy poetry and sing classic and contemporary cowboy ballads.

Doors open at 10 a.m. May 27, for Yvonne Hollenbeck's "Five Generations of Quilts" traveling trunk show, with more than three dozen cherished quilts and coverlets and the story behind each as told by Hollenbeck, an award-winning cowgirl poet.

The earliest pieces, in muslin and yellow cotton, date back to the 1880s. The $10 admission for the quilt show includes coffee and pastries and cameo appearances by night show entertainers, Clayton and Fisher.

Daytime poetry and music sessions, and a Western art show sponsored by the Badlands Art Association, get under way at 1 p.m. Both are free and open to the public. Guests may come and go during the afternoon as sessions start throughout the day.

Festivities continue May 28, with country-gospel beginning at 9 a.m. Cowgirl poet, author and evangelist Rhonda Sedgwick Stearns, Newcastle, Wyo., will lead the ecumenical program. Following a break for lunch, afternoon poetry and music sessions resume at 1 p.m.

For more information on the Dakota Cowboy Poetry Gathering contact Lowman at 872-4746. For art show information contact Mary Lovell of the Badlands Art Association at 483-4950, or 456-7700. For information on the quilt show contact Jeri Dobrowski at 406-795-8168.

Tickets are $12 for adults, $10 for high school students and $5 for students 12 years old and under. Children who can be held on an adult's lap are admitted free of charge.