Morgan Buckert

History

Morgan Buckert is a custom bootmaker in Hailey, Idaho, from a seventh-generation Texas ranch family out of Goliad. Her father was a ranch foreman in South Texas, and her parents' own boots had been made by Lee Miller in the 1980s; her first handmade pair was a high-school graduation present from M.L. Leddy's. She holds a B.A. in government and history from the University of Texas at Austin and an M.A. in U.S. Western History from the University of New Mexico, and moved to the Sun Valley area in 2005.

A shoemaking class at Penland School of Crafts first drew her to the trade, and a Santa Fe shoemaker, Jessica Brommer, kept her in it. Seth Teichert of MacKay, Idaho, became her mentor for two years under an Idaho Commission on the Arts grant; the commission's report says she had studied leather since 2009, attended Penland in 2013 and 2014, and received a 2016 grant to apprentice with Teichert, during which she completed her first pair of pull-on boots. Teichert's shop later trained another apprentice, Natalie Teichert.

Buckert also worked with Wes Shugart of Nashville, and in 2023 she was named Boot Making Fellow for Art of the Cowgirl, with Lisa Sorrell of Guthrie as her mentor. She says that about five years after she started, she had her own shop, and as of her most recent profile she was booked into 2028.

Sources

• Morgan Buckert interview, The Cowboy Bootmakers (25 April 2019)
• Morgan Buckert Custom Boots, About
• Idaho Commission on the Arts, “Final Report: Bootmaking”