KETCHUM, Idaho — This year’s Sheep Tales Gathering — a popular event held during the Trailing of the Sheep Festival — will present the unique stories of women ranchers in the West.

The program will feature Marcia Barinaga of Barinaga Ranch, Julie Hansmire of Campbell Hanshmire Sheep and Andrée and Bianca Soares of Talbott Sheep Co, according to the Trailing of the Sheep website.

Barinaga, the granddaughter of Basque sheep ranchers from Idaho, was born in New York, earned a Ph.D. in molecular biology and had a career in science writing before establishing a sheep dairy in Marin County, Calif. in 2007.

She learned about sheep from her cousin, Linda Barinaga, who had grown up on the original family ranch in Idaho, and learned cheesemaking with the help of her relatives in the Basque country. Her cheeses, Baserri and Txiki, have won numerous awards.

In 2016, she retired from cheesemaking and transitioned her dairy flock to a fiber flock. She now raises Romney, Corriedale and Cormo sheep, sells yarn made from their natural-colored fiber and employs restorative grazing practices on the 800-acre ranch she owns with her husband.

Hansmire runs a herded range sheep operation in Colorado and Utah. The operation’s summer country is near Vail, Colo., and the herds winter in eastern Utah. This is the same country where Julie and her late husband, Randy Campbell, started in the mid-1980s through a variety of leases, partnerships and purchases.

Their son, Lynn, and daughter, Clay, have contributed to the success of the ranching operation.

Hansmire received a bachelor’s degree in natural resources at the University of Nebraska and a master’s degree in range science at Texas Tech University and worked for short periods with the Bureau of Land Management. But the sheep became her primary interest.

She has served in several leadership positions in the sheep industry and is an advocate for the positive aspects and impacts of grazing animals, as well as improving others’ understanding of the industry.

Within her sheep operation, she has focused on improving wool quality and raising Akbash livestock guardian dogs.

She competed for about 10 years in dog trialing and continues to take about 800 yearling Merino ewes to the Meeker Classic Sheepdog Trial each fall.

The Soares are a mother-daughter duo now managing both the family commercial sheep business established in 1920, and their targeted grazing operation, Star Creek Land Stewards Inc.

Andrée left her career of 29 years as a neonatal nurse to rejoin the family passion and business in 2014.

Upon graduating from college at the University of California-Davis in 2018, Bianca began to work full-time alongside her mother for Star Creek Land Stewards, a prominent targeted grazer in California. Their business works mostly to help combat the threat of wildfire.

Today, Andrée is on the board of many industry committees and associations, and both women continue to work to be more involved in the industry as a whole.

The Sheep Tales Gathering will be moderated by Idaho rancher Mike Guerry. It is set for Oct. 7 at 7 p.m. at the Argyros Performing Arts Center in Ketchum. Tickets are $25 and can be purchased on the festival website at https://trailingofthesheep.org .