Saddle of Honor

Award Epitomizing the Soul of the American West

"Saddle of Honor"


Recipients


2024
Montana's Gentleman Cowboy

Lester "Bud" Griffith

Read more 〉

2022
Montana's Cowboy Cartoonist

Wallace K. "Wally" Badgett

Award Information 〉

2019
Montana's Storyteller in Bronze

Jay Joseph Contway

Read more below...


2018
America's Cowboy Artist

Charles M. "Charlie" Russell

CMR Museum 〉

About

​The Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame was founded on the vision of Montanans with a strong desire to honor, preserve and pass forward the values and culture of those who have made a meaningful impact to our state’s heritage. The MCHF fulfills this duty by recognizing the notable contributions, in part, of our Montana cowboys, cowgirls, American Indians, and settlers. To enhance these standards and principles our goal is to bring new opportunity in which to pay tribute, with a prestigious award, to past inductees of the MCHF who epitomize the soul of the American West.

On Friday, September 6, 2019, the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame and the C.M. Russell Museum celebrated the second “Saddle of Honor” awarded to “Montana’s Storyteller in Bronze,” Jay Joseph Contway at a ceremony at the C.M. Russell Museum in Great Falls, Montana.

Contway, of Great Falls, has spent a lifetime creating western sculpture. His knowledge and respect for the working cowboy shows clearly in his art. Appreciation for the history, his own native ancestry, and the people and animals of the West is clearly illustrated in his work. Contway was inducted into the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame in 2015. Contway joins last year’s Saddle of Honor recipient Charles M. Russell.

The event is part of a pilot project currently taking place between the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame and the C.M. Russell Museum honoring the inductees of the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame.​

A video and photographs of the ceremony are below. Congratulations Jay!