Diana French received the Joe Marten Memorial Award for the Preservation of Cowboy Heritage in BC during the Kamloops Cowboy Festival last weekend.
The award was presented during the main feature show Saturday evening, March 18. The award is presented by the BC Cowboy Heritage Society and honours one recipient annually.
French was the curator of the Museum of the Cariboo Chilcotin in Williams Lake for close to 30 years. She has written three ranch related books, and she was the push behind the museum partnering with the BC Cowboy Hall of Fame and making the museum the home to its memorabilia as well as swinging the museum's focus to cowboys, ranching and rodeo.
She was a reporter, and later the editor, of the Williams Lake Tribune, and still writes a weekly column for the paper.
French's three books are Ranchland, partnered with photographer Rick Blacklaws, which is all about the history of ranching and cowboys in BC; The Road Runs West and Women of Fine Mettle, both include stories of well known, and not so well known, women involved in ranching.
"These alone make French a very deserving recipient and the BC Cowboy Heritage Society was extremely happy to add her to the list of recipients for the Annual Joe Marten Memorial Award for the Preservation of Cowboy Heritage in BC," said society president Mark McMillan.
French continues to write a column for the Tribune.