Jessie Veeder has been a symbol of folk music in Western North Dakota since she released her first original album when she was only sixteen years old. It was an effort that took her from performing at fairs and festivals around her home state to managing a national college and coffeehouse tour and launching a music career that recently landed her in Nashville to record her fifth original album.
Since then she has gone on to tour nationally and record five more albums, the latest, “Playing Favorites” released in 2020. Jessie’s nationally acclaimed song “Boomtown,” a folk ballad about life for people in the Bakken has been featured on area news programs, national and international documentaries and put her on the frontlines of telling the story of community in oil country.
Since 2010 Jessie and her husband, Chad, have worked alongside her father as the fourth generation stewards of the Veeder Ranch where she chronicles life on the land as a weekly columnist for state-wide newspapers and on her popular blog titled “Meanwhile, back at the ranch…” The couple are raising two daughters, Edie, 7 and Rosie, 5 and connect listeners to the ranch weekly on their podcast by the same name. Jessie’s book “Coming Home,” released in 2017, is a compilation of her favorite photos, poems, stories and recipes. In 2022, Jessie released her first children’s book, “Prairie Princess,” to help tell the story of rural living and ranch life through the eyes of a young girl. She tours extensively in the upper Midwest as an entertainer, motivational speaker and advocate for agriculture, rural living and the messy side of motherhood.
In addition to her career as a Jessie is a founding member of McKenzie County’s Long X Arts Foundation where she works to help create and promote cultural and arts based activities in her hometown, blending her love and connection to the arts with her drive to make her community a better place to work and live.
Jessie has has taken the stage multiple times at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering and the Red Ants Pants Music festival. She was named 2016 and 2017’s Favorite North Dakota Folk Artist is a recipient of the North Dakota Ambassador Award and North Dakota Governor’s Award in the Arts in individual achievement.
Find out more at www.veederranch.com and jessieveedermusic.com
Read about her life on her blog Meanwhile, back at the ranch…
