dee’s book of poems, My Bright Red Scream, took first place in the Society’s 2016 Poetry Manuscript Contest.
 
In 2015, after a 20-year career, Duane retired from the United States Air Force and credits his experiences in the military for broadening his worldview. Visits and deployments to Saudi Arabia, Korea, China, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, and most recently Afghanistan, helped to provide depth in his poetry.
 
Possessing, probably one of the most mispronounced one-syllable names in history, Rygh, pronounced (rigg), Duane began writing poetry in high school for no other reason than to see if he could do it. Apparently he could and continues today.
 
After his first visit to the Ben Lomond’s poetry group, Ogden Utah’s chapter of the Utah State Poetry Society, as he put it; “I merely dipped my toe into the pond of poetic possibilities, among an ocean of metaphor, assonance, and alliteration and realized to quote Roy Scheider’s character from Jaws, ‘I was gonna need a bigger boat’ and have been adrift ever since.”
 
Duane and his wife, Janet, currently live in Roy, Utah with their son, Jalen, along with one dog, three cats and what dee refers to as an outdoor not-to-go-away peacock named Pepe, and a menacing raccoon.