Rachelle "Rocky" Gibbons

Rachelle "Rocky" Gibbons was born in Price, Utah and grew up along the San Pedro River in southern Arizona, where she attended San Manuel High School and the University of Arizona.  She worked as an advertising copywriter and media buyer in Salt Lake City and Los Angeles for many years.

She is the author of “The Big Buckaroo” series of children’s books, with the title character based on her cousin, Robbers Roost rancher and rodeo star AC Ekker.  Two of the books in the series, Big Buckaroo and Moose the Cow Dog and Big Buckaroo Goes to the Special Olympics, have earned coveted Western Writers of America Spur Award finalist honors.  Her latest project is co-editing and contributing to an anthology of short nonfiction stories for juvenile readers titled Why Cows Need Cowboys and other Seldom-Told Tales from the American West (scheduled for release Spring 2021 by TwoDot/Rowman and Littlefield.)  The story contributed to this collection is “Fire and Tragedy: Joe Thurston and the Granite Mountain Hotshots,” which is about a Cedar City native who perished while fighting the Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona in 2013.  

Rocky presently serves on the Board of Directors and as the Membership Coordinator for the Western Writers of America organization.  

She is enjoying retirement in southern Utah with her husband and two dogs.

Work

Bibliography

Why Cows Need Cowboys and other Seldom-Told Tales from the American West
(Spring 2021, TwoDot, an imprint of Rowman and Littlefield)
Contributed story: “Fire and Tragedy: Joe Thurston and the Granite Mountain Hotshots”

Big Buckaroo Goes to the Special Olympics
(2016, Tate Publishing & Enterprises)
2017 Western Writers of America Spur Award Finalist – Storyteller category

Big Buckaroo and Moose the Cow Dog
(2012, Tate Publishing & Enterprises)
2013 Western Writers of America Spur Award Finalist – Storyteller category

Big Buckaroo’s Little Sister
(2009, Tate Publishing & Enterprises)

 

Additional Info

  • Region: Southeastern Utah, Southwestern Utah
  • Genre: Fiction, Nonfiction
  • Tags: Women, Children's Literature