A familiar voice from home: Jessie Veeder Scofield champions rural life from the ranch in song
M.K. French
Farmer Staff Writer
Singer-songwriter Jessie Veeder Scofield proves that you don’t have to leave home to achieve your dreams, winning major national honors while staying true to her North Dakota roots and sharing her homegrown spirit with the world.
The Academy of Western Artists (AWA) recently celebrated the heartland, and at the center of the celebration was North Dakota’s own Jessie Veeder Scofield. The singer-songwriter, who writes and performs songs deeply rooted in her life on the family ranch, earned three major awards for her album, “Yellow Roses,” including Western Country Album of the Year, Western Country Song for “Hard on Things,” and Western/Cowboy Music Video for “Red Barns and People Get Old.” While the recognition is national, Scofield’s greatest triumph is demonstrating that an artist can find success and inspiration right where they belong.
For Scofield, the dream was never about leaving her rural home for the bright lights of a big city, but about bringing the power of her community’s stories out to the rest of the world: “I didn’t want to move off of and make a living out of it,” she shared. “My goal [was always]...to have a creative living in the place that I love and continue to tell its stories, and that’s been like a dream.” This deep connection to her land and family - where she raises her children and sings songs about them - is a blessing she doesn’t take for granted. “Every day I don’t take that for granted that I get to raise my kids and sing songs about them on the ranch - that’s very cool and people want to hear them.” This ability to sustain a creative life while remaining geographically centered is, she notes, an inspiring example for her children.
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