[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 112 (Thursday, July 17, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4611-S4612]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     CONGRATULATING CHARLIE SEEMANN

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, today I wish to honor Charlie Seemann. Mr. 
Seemann is a talented folklorist who is dedicated to sharing western 
arts and culture with communities throughout Nevada. At the end of the 
month, he will be retiring from his position as executive director of 
the Western Folklife Center in Elko, NV.
  After serving as the deputy director of the Country Music Foundation 
in Nashville, TN, for 12 years, and later working as the program 
director at the Fund for Folk Culture in Santa Fe, NM, Nevada was 
fortunate to have Mr. Seemann dedicate his efforts to sharing the 
cultural heritage of the American West with communities throughout our 
great State.
  In 1998, Mr. Seemann brought his masters of folklife studies, decades 
of experience, and his accomplished musical knowledge to the Western 
Folklife

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Center in Nevada. During his 16-year tenure, he has strengthened the 
arts throughout his community by investing in literary and scholarship 
programs that have helped foster artistic development and brought new 
artists to Western Folklife's most notable event, the National Cowboy 
Poetry Gathering. Since 1986, Mr. Seemann participated in the annual 
National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, formerly the Elko Cowboy Poetry 
Gathering. This event was renamed in 2000, after Mr. Seemann worked 
with Members of Congress to pass a United States Senate Resolution 
designating the poetry gathering in Elko as a nationally recognized 
event.
  Mr. Seeman is not only a strong advocate for western arts and 
culture, but he is a nationally renowned folklorist. Prior to coming to 
the Western Folklife Center, he received the Western Heritage Wrangler 
Award from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, as well as 
a Grammy nomination for the New World Records anthology Back in the 
Saddle Again: American Cowboy Songs. Mr. Seemann also received a 
Wrangler Award in 2003, for his production work on a joint project 
between the Western Folklife Center and Smithsonian Folkways 
Recordings, Buck Ramsey: Hittin' the Trail. In 2006, Mr. Seeman was 
appointed by Congress to the Board of Trustees for the American 
Folklife Center. This Center is housed at the Library of Congress and 
works to archive and preserve American's unique culture. It was a 
tribute to Mr. Seeman's reputation that he was selected for this 
Federal board, and he represented Nevada well in this role.
  Mr. Seemann will be missed by the many individuals he works with at 
the Western Folklife Center, but his contributions to western folklore 
will continue. I wish him well in his retirement and all the best in 
his future endeavors.

                          ____________________