Western Women: Lynda K Bundrant-Taylor

Welcome back!

Incredible Western Women Series

For those of you just joining us, here’s a little background…

Born in the small town of Colville, WA, I was raised in the Spokane suburbs and moved to rural America with my husband a little over three decades ago. Country life is an amazing place to raise our sons and grandkids. Here on the Colville Reservation, we have lakes, rivers, and creeks to fishing and swim in, hills and mountains to ride horses and hike on, and plenty of space to enjoy family time.

Four generations have grown up and enjoyed this land and all it provides.

I’d like to share rural America with you through the words and photos of incredible western women. And if you are a western woman or have someone in mind who can share their stories with us, please pass on their name and contact information to me. I’d love to include them on this journey.

So now, let’s open the corral gate and hear from one of this month’s western women!

It is a pleasure to introduce Lynda K. Bundrant-Taylor. You might be sick of hearing this, but Linda and I too met through Women Writing the West. I tell ya, there are so many amazing women in this organization! We have three more things in common, special people in our lives who are members of the Colville Reservation. For Lynda, it’s her daughter and for me, it’s my husband, sons, one daughter-in-law, and grandchildren.

Furthermore, we both had family members who worked at Hanford and are both lovers of horses.

We really are connected in so many ways.

So now, about Lynda…

I was born in Richland Washington, and both my parents worked at Hanford. There are many summers I spent growing up on my grandfather’s farm in Sunnyside helping him out with his asparagus and other farm chores.  I always blamed my grandfather for instilling the love of the land in me…which I am very thankful for.

As I grew older, the love of horses also grew. By the time I was 10, I owned my first horse… a Morgan/Appaloosa cross named Judy’s Black Jade. And so, my journey with horses began and will never end. As years go by, I acquired a registered Appaloosa gelding named Navajo Bar Laddie. From then on, my career with horses, and showing took off.

I was also a certified judge for Washington State Horseman, judge schooling shows, offered riding lessons, and trained horses for clients for several years (1976 -1985). The last show I judged was the Hot Springs County Fair (Horse Division) in Thermopolis, Wyoming in 2007. I still own horses, two mares that are registered Appaloosas.

My other passion has been writing.

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I started a journal in junior high school and that lead to writing for various equine magazines. In 1998 I was picked up as a regular freelance writer for Cascade Horseman/Cattleman magazines with monthly articles until Klamath Publishers sold out in 2010. I also have written for Online Gaited magazine, Appaloosa Journal, and a few others as well. I also have published a few poems, well, I call them, “a gathering of words” instead.

A Drum Now Silent is about my mother who passed in 1980, and Battle of the Appaloosa a historical perception of the Appaloosa horse in 1877.

In 2008 I was blessed with many letters, songs, poems, and photos from a shirt-tail cousin, Robert (Bob) Bondurant of Casper, Wyoming. These gems were of his grandfathers’ trek from Mayview, Missouri with the hopes of landing in Baker, Oregon to start a general mercantile store.

Instead, “Bondy” and the family fell in love with the Hoback Basin in Wyoming and homesteaded on their 160 acres. I started weaving the letters, songs, and poems into a manuscript to hope that one day I would get it published.

Life sometimes has a way of getting in the way of goals and dreams.

The manuscript went on the shelf and stayed there collecting dust. I periodically thought of it and then put it aside again. I recently pulled it off the shelves and started a rewrite with some new research information.

Horses, writing, and love of the West, what do they have in common?

Still my passions, both have life breathed back into them and staying on track! Much of my strength and encouragement  I get are from my daughter, Kellie and her 5-month-old son Stetson Wyatt Pakootas.

Rebranding, yes, I’m ready!

Connect with Lynda

Lynda K. Bundrant-Taylor [email protected]