ENTERPRISE — Western swing comes to the OK Theatre Saturday, Sept. 10, when Kristyn Harris and Hailey Sandoz take the stage during the Hells Canyon Mule Days weekend.

Proficient in the Western swing classics by Sons of the Pioneers, Marty Robbins, Bob Wills and the “Texas Playboys,” “Riders in the Sky” and “Asleep at the Wheel,” Harris was the youngest to ever be awarded International Western Music Association Entertainer of the Year at the age of 27.

She went on to win Entertainer of the Year the next three years as well as the Association’s Female Performer of the Year award five times. She was named the Ameripolitan Music Awards Western Swing Female Artist of the Year in 2017, as well as the Pro Cowboy Country Artist Association’s 2017 Entertainer of the Year and Female Vocalist of the Year.

Her latest album, “A Place to Land,” won the Wrangler Award from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.

A Texas native, Harris said she started learning cords out of a book with a borrowed guitar when she was 14.

“Once I picked it up, I would shut myself in my room for hours and practice,” Harris said.

Her parents rewarded her diligence and interest with a guitar at Christmas, a black Ibanez that she said she still has.

Less than a year after picking up the guitar, Harris said she was talked into playing at an open mic. It was at that event she learned about Cowtown Opry in Ft. Worth. Any musician can join, she said, and perform at a free show held every Sunday afternoon.

“Joining Cowtown Opry helped me — I was surrounded by musicians and it gave me a chance to perform and get over my stage fright,” she said.

A regular at the Opry for the next few years, Harris said she quit once she was playing professionally. By the time she was 18 she said she was spending her weekends at paid gigs and has been making a living with her music ever since.

“I took some online college classes intending to get a degree, but by that time I was pretty busy playing gigs and doing a lot of traveling so eventually I decided to stop and I didn’t have a career path besides music.”

With no regrets, Harris said she spent those first years immersed in the music industry.

“When you’re young, that’s when you learn like a sponge and have a lot of energy,” Harris said.

While Harris took to the guitar with gusto and has a beautiful singing voice, the business of being a musician was something she learned along the way, as well.

“I do my own booking and managing, so business skills was a learning curve — by trial and error,” Harris said.

As all musicians making their money on stage the COVID-19 restrictions for live performance put a crimp in her style, but as she was planning her wedding at the time, she made good use of the hiatus. Harris said in Texas events started getting booked again by March 2021 and she got busy again, in a hurry.

“Shows seemed to come back in a whirlwind,” Harris said. “Everybody was tired of being cooped up and since then things have been steadily busy.”

Though there are “miles and miles of Texas” and plenty of venues booking Western swing acts like Harris, she said she does get around the country, especially the western states.

“I play at a lot of festivals and cowboy gatherings like Mule Days — they go hand in hand with the music I do,” she said.