Staff

Tristan Ahtone

Associate Editor
Location: Washington

Tristan Ahtone serves as associate editor for tribal affairs at High Country News. He has reported for “PBS NewsHour,” “Frontline,” “National Native News,” Wyoming Public Radio, Fronteras Desk, NPR and Al Jazeera America. Ahtone’s stories have won multiple honors, including investigative awards from Public Radio News Directors Incorporated and the Gannett Foundation. A citizen of the Kiowa Tribe, Ahtone was awarded a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard in 2017.

email: tristanahtone at hcn.org

Follow @tahtone

Luna Anna Archey

Associate Photo Editor 
Location: Colorado

Luna is a Michigan native that left the midwest for the first time just six years ago and hasn't stopped exploring since. Her curiosity led her to degrees in neuroscience and the fine arts at the University of Michigan. She found telling stories with multimedia journalism as a great way to use this curiosity. Luna's most recent work was with a non-profit in northern India that promotes financial independence through craft making for rural women. In her free time she can be found taking her camera for a walk, and is excited that her new home has so many trails and sunny days to do so! 

email: lunaarchey at hcn.org

Emily Benson

Assistant Editor
Location: Idaho

Emily’s lifelong love of the outdoors was sparked by a childhood spent swimming and paddling the lakes and rivers of New York State’s Adirondack Mountains. She earned a bachelor’s degree at Colgate University in central New York, a master’s degree in biology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and a graduate certificate from the University of California Santa Cruz’s Science Communication Program. She’s based in Moscow, Idaho, and spends most of her free time cross-country skiing or cooling off in the nearest lake or river, depending on the season.

email: emilyb at hcn.org

Follow @erbenson1

Paige Blankenbuehler

Assistant Editor
Location: Colorado

Paige was born and raised in Colorado and doesn’t plan on leaving the state’s mountains any time soon. She contributes to the magazine’s southern coverage and is especially inclined to digging up dirty deals and writing narratives from the West’s changing communities. Paige has covered Western issues at newspapers since 2011 and received a master’s in journalism from the University of Missouri in 2015. When she’s not writing, she hiking around somewhere with her coonhound, Porter.

email: paigeb at hcn.org

Follow @paigeblank

Graham Lee Brewer

Contributing Editor
Location: Oklahoma

Graham Lee Brewer is a contributing editor on the High Country News tribal affairs desk. He is a native of Oklahoma, where he resides with his son, and a member of the Cherokee Nation. Graham is an alum of The Oklahoman newspaper, where he extensively covered the state criminal justice system. Graham serves as a board member for the Native American Journalists Association.

email: grahamb at hcn.org

Follow @grahambrewer

Brian Calvert

Editor-in-Chief
Location: Colorado

Brian, a fourth-generation Wyoming native, grew up in Pinedale and graduated from the University of Northern Colorado in 1994 with a B.A. in English liberal arts and minors in writing and media studies. He has worked as a foreign correspondent, writer, audio journalist, and most recently, a Ted Scripps Fellow in Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado. He is currently completing an MFA in poetry.

email: brianc at hcn.org

Follow @brcalvert

Christie Cantrell

Customer Service Manager
Location: Colorado

Christie hails from a rich history of nonprofit, small business, corporate enterprise customer service and project management experience; all of which is augmented by her long-time engagement in the human potential movement.

She has lived in Colorado for almost four decades, having left Northern California’s big city fuel crisis and water shortages of the 1970s for the nurturing mountain lifestyle of the Rockies.

Her passions are family and friends, touring and photographing the stunning Rocky Mountains, riding tandem on her husband’s Harley, as well as hiking, fishing, and bike riding while home basing out of rural Paonia – known as Colorado’s Fresh Food Capital!

Cally Carswell

Contributing Editor
Location: New Mexico

Cally got her start in public radio before taking the print plunge as an High Country News intern and editorial fellow in 2009. New Mexico-born, Chicago-raised, Cally spent her pre-HCN decades plotting her return to the Southwest. Happy to once again be a tiny dot in a big landscape, she writes and edit news and features for the magazine.

email: callyc at hcn.org

Follow @callycarswell

Laura Dixon

Events & Business Partner Coordinator
Location: Colorado

Laura has loved the Southwest since she first moved to Colorado in 1981. After seven years in Seattle, she is excited to return to the mountains of Colorado, which she considers home. Laura has worked in marketing, development, advertising and community relations for numerous non-profits, including Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Spiritual Paths Foundation, and most recently, Pilchuck Glass School. She has spent many years working in public libraries. Laura enjoys time with family and friends, gardening, fiber arts, reading, qigong and visiting hot springs.

email: laurad at hcn.org

Ruxandra Guidi

Contributing Editor
Location: California

Ruxandra Guidi, a native of Venezuela, has reported throughout the United States and Latin America for both magazines and public radio, and in both English and Spanish. She has worked extensively as an independent journalist, and has also worked for PRI’s The World, NPR’s Latino USA, and as a U.S.-Mexico border reporter for the Fronteras Desk initiative. Her work has been published by Orion Magazine, National Geographic NewsWatch, The Atlantic, and others. She’s a board member for the award-winning nonprofit journalism collaborative, Homelands Productions, and she regularly collaborates with husband, photographer Bear Guerra, under the name Fonografia Collective.

email: ruxandrag at hcn.org

Follow @HomelandsProd

Rebecca Hemer

Circulation Assistant
Location: Colorado

Rebecca just moved to Crawford from the big city of Grand Junction, Colorado. When she’s not at work, she’s hanging out in the garden with her 4-year-old daughter, Briley.

email: rebeccahemer at hcn.org

Erica Howard

Accountant & HR Manager
Location: Colorado

Erica moved to Paonia in late 2015 from Isle of Wight, England, having fallen in love with this part of Colorado after being a regular visitor to the US for many years as a spouse of an American. Previously, Erica served as the Director of Finance and HR for the UK Sailing Academy, a youth training nonprofit, for 20 years. She has two grown children, one of whom lives in California. Erica loves walking/hiking, having wonderful friends in her life and anything feline.

email: ericah at hcn.org

Karen Howe

Customer Service Assistant
Location: Colorado

Karen Howe grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah and graduated with a B.A. in Environmental Studies and Art from Western State Colorado University. She interned at Thistle Whistle Farm in Hotchkiss, spent a year as a Fellow with the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union and worked for two years with the Delta County Libraries. She enjoys spending time with her dairy goats, exploring for petroglyphs and hiking the Black Canyon National Park.

email: karenhowe at hcn.org

Maya L. Kapoor

Associate Editor
Location: California

Maya writes about science, environmental policy and social justice. She has more than a decade’s experience as a field biologist and environmental educator in the western United States and Latin America. Maya holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from Williams College, a master’s degree in biology from Arizona State University, and an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Arizona. She now heads up our West-South desk as an associate editor from Davis, California.

email: mayak at hcn.org

Chris King

Digital Marketer
Location: Colorado

Chris was born and raised in Northern Arizona where he spent much of his childhood exploring trails and traveling around the west with his family. Making his way into digital marketing after earning his B.A. in graphic design, Chris is excited to contribute to the marketing department of High Country News. In his free time, he enjoys mountain biking with his wife, working on vintage Volkswagens and playing music.

email: chrisk at hcn.org

Gretchen King 

Digital Editor
Location: Colorado

Gretchen (no relation to Chris above - but a big fan) is excited to hear from HCN readers and help them forge a stronger connection to the stories of the West. She oversees the digital content of High Country News, including its website, social media presence and newsletters. With a B.S. in journalism and master’s in professional communications, Gretchen has worked in the web world since 1992 (and knows this dates her to admit). Raised on the Western Slope of Colorado, Gretchen has lived in Boulder, Indiana, Oregon and, most recently, Fairbanks, Alaska. Now living in Gunnison, she loves any mountain experience, chocolate, yoga and spending time with her husband, Mike, and 12-year-old son, Riley.

email: gretchenk at hcn.org

Jessica Kutz

Editorial Fellow
Location: Colorado

Jessica Kutz got her start in journalism as a staff reporter at a small-town daily newspaper in Telluride, Colorado. She has a degree in international affairs from the University of Colorado and an international media certificate. As an editorial fellow, Jessica hopes to learn the ins and outs of narrative storytelling and writing in-depth news analysis about the people and policies that make up the West. In her free time she likes listening to Paul Simon on repeat, playing the four mediocre songs she knows on the guitar and planning hiking adventures in this beautiful state she gets to call home.

email: jessicak at hcn.org

Follow @jkutzie

Paul Larmer

Executive Director/Publisher
Location: Colorado

After completing his internship in 1984, Paul went on to hold almost every possible position at High Country News. He is now responsible for working with the board of directors, drumming up funding and generally making sure the magazine is sailing in the right direction. He holds a master’s degree in natural resource policy and worked for years at the Sierra Club. Every summer he plants a few crops on his small ranch in Western Colorado and pretends to be a farmer.

email: plarmer at hcn.org

Betsy Marston

Editor at Large
Location: Colorado

She may have edited High Country News for 19 years – longer than anyone else in the history of the publication – but Betsy insists the experience did not make her crazy. She currently writes the column “Heard Around the West.” She also delights in collecting quirky photos from readers and sharing them on the back page of the magazine. She describes herself as a “volunteeraholic,” and in no particular order, loves Paonia, biking back roads, reading the Sunday New York Times, and her grandchildren Maude, Bruno and Sorcha.

email: betsym at hcn.org

Josh McIntire

Help Desk and Support Technician
Location: Colorado

Josh was raised in western Colorado, where he learned to love the outdoors, spending most of his childhood playing in the mountains. In 2010 he was hired by Apple Computers, working in a retail environment, eventually moving into a support role for AppleCare. In 2013, Josh and his family moved back to the Colorado mountains where they continue to enjoy the outdoors. In his free time, Josh is probably chasing down one of his four kids, spending time with his beautiful wife, brewing an IPA or fixing a computer somewhere.  

email: joshmcintire at hcn.org

Kathy Martinez

Circulation Systems Administrator
Location: Colorado

Since 1995 Kathy has worked her way up the ranks of the HCN Circulation Department from part-time office staff (applying labels to the newspaper when it was mailed from our Paonia office) to circulation manager. Kathy now concentrates on the database needed to support HCN’s subscribers. When not at HCN you can find her fishing and camping in the great outdoors or staying close to home gardening, cooking and being a grandma.

email: kathy at hcn.org

Laurie Milford

Director of Development
Location: Colorado

Laurie brings 17 years of experience in senior nonprofit and education management to High Country News. Previously, she was executive director at the Wyoming Outdoor Council, where she played a role in establishing the first state laws to regulate the flaring of methane in natural gas drilling operations and to require oil and gas companies to determine baseline water quality before using hydraulic fracturing. She was involved in the long-term protection of more than 3 million acres of BLM and Forest Service lands, including the landmark Wyoming Range Legacy Act and was instrumental in raising funds to achieve these successes. Laurie served as a production editor for Westview Press in Boulder, Colorado, and holds a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in English from the University of Iowa and the University of Wyoming respectively. She graduated from the Institute for Conservation Leadership in 2008; in 2010 the institute recognized her as an exemplary leader in the conservation movement. Laurie lives in Hotchkiss with her husband and son.

email: lauriem at hcn.org

Michelle Nijhuis

Contributing Editor

Michelle began her journalism career in 1998, as a High Country News intern, and has written and edited for High Country News ever since. Now a project editor for The Atlantic, Michelle has also written about science and conservation for National Geographic, The New York Times Magazine, and many other publications; her reporting has won several national honors and been included in four Best American anthologies. Until 2013, Michelle and her family lived off the electrical grid near HCN's home base in Paonia. They now live on the north side of the Columbia Gorge, in Washington state. 

email: michelle at hcn.org

Follow @nijhuism

Pam Peters

Circulation Assistant
Location: Colorado

Pam moved to Colorado with her family in 1992 when they built their own home, which is totally off the grid and passive solar. Her four children are all grown, and she spends her free time with her husband and lots of livestock - horses, goats, turkeys and chickens. Pam enjoys spending her time with her children, four grandchildren and traveling. She is very happy to be working with the circulation department at High Country News. 

Jodi Peterson

Contributing Editor
Location: Colorado

Jodi grew up on Colorado’s Front Range and attended Colorado State University, earning a B.A. in English and an M.A. in communication development. She spent 16 years working as a technical communicator with computer company Hewlett-Packard, then made a career shift to journalism. Shortly after completing an internship with High Country News, in 2004, she was hired as the organization’s news editor; she served as managing editor for five years, and is now a contributing editor. Under Jodi’s leadership, HCN’s journalism received the Hillman Prize, two Utne Reader Independent Media awards for best environmental coverage, special citations from the Knight-Risser Prize for Western Environmental Journalism, and several awards from the National Association of Science Writers, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Society of Environmental Journalists. Jodi now oversees the news stories and book reviews for each issue of the magazine, and writes about public lands, wildlife management and other topics.

email: jodi at hcn.org

Follow @Peterson_Jodi

Alyssa Pinkerton

Major Gift Adviser
Location: Colorado

Alyssa was born in Florida, but don’t hold that against her. She has worked for High Country News in the development department since October 2008. She enjoys building relationships with the remarkable readership, staff and board of directors. When she’s not working with donors, you can find her romping out in the wild lands, painting pictures, dancing, or soaking in hot springs - with her two darling towheads.

email: alyssap at hcn.org

Elena Saavedra Buckley

Editorial Intern
Location: Colorado

Elena grew up in the North Valley of Albuquerque, New Mexico. She comes to HCN after graduating from Yale, where she majored in Humanities and edited The New Journal, a creative nonfiction magazine. She ambled over to long-form writing after stints in music journalism at WNYC and NPR. Now, after finishing a thesis about the legacies of mining and the security industry in southwestern New Mexico, she's ready to dig in to nuanced coverage of the varied West(s).  

email: elenasb at hcn.org

Follow @elenasb_

Kate Schimel

Associate Editor
Location: Washington

Kate oversees coverage of the northern part of our region as an associate editor. She is a Colorado native and a lifelong High Country News reader. She got her start covering education in Denver and around the state at Chalkbeat, a start-up education news site. She has a degree in biology at Reed. She has worked as a freelance education and environment reporter, a Seattle-based correspondent for HCN, and deputy editor-digital for hcn.org.  

email: kateschimel at hcn.org

Follow @kateschimel

Carl Segerstrom

Editorial Fellow
Location: Washington

Carl comes to HCN from Eugene, Oregon where he studied journalism through the University of Oregon’s professional master’s program and wrote for Eugene Weekly. Originally from the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, Carl has lived and travelled through much of the West. When he’s not digging into environmental news stories, he likes to spend time outside skiing and exploring high country rivers and lakes.

email: carls at hcn.org

Follow @Carlschirps

Anna V. Smith

Assistant Editor
Location: Oregon

Anna V. Smith has spent the majority of her life in the Pacific Northwest, from growing up in rural Oregon to becoming a news reporter on a small cluster of islands in northern Washington. She joined the High Country News team in Paonia as our editorial intern in July 2016 and is now an assistant editor based in Oregon, where she writes for HCN’s tribal affairs desk.

email: annasmith at hcn.org

Follow @annavtoriasmith

Eric Strebel

Full Stack Web Application Developer
Location: Colorado

Eric Strebel has been working with computers since 1978, when he got his first personal computer, and soon thereafter learned to create custom programs as a hobby. Eric eventually developed his programming hobby into a livelihood. Prior to joining us, he freelanced, managed local websites, and managed a call center IT department over the course of two decades. Eric enjoys fishing, hiking in the mountains and perfecting his different salsa recipes. He lives in nearby Hotchkiss with his wife, Barbara.

email: erics at hcn.org

Hannah Stevens

Development Associate
Location: Colorado

Hannah Stevens holds a degree in Biology from Colorado College and a MA in Conservation Biology from Columbia University. She spent more than a decade at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, where she had her nose in herbarium collections (including holding in hand a plant collected by Charles Darwin himself), data management, phytochemistry, international field work and, most recently, headed the Geographic Information Systems conservation research program. Hannah recently landed back in Paonia where once upon a time her family had an organic garlic farm. You can now find her managing HCN's monthly giving program, which includes helping over 800 wonderful donors, and helping with other development campaigns. In her spare time, she tries to keep up with her daughters and partner (who hopes one day she will actually row a boat; paddleboarding is really more her style), chickens, and a big garden.

email: hannahstevens at hcn.org

Diane Sylvain

Copy Editor
Location: Colorado

Diane splits her time between painting – she’s an accomplished artist who sells her art all over Western Colorado – and making our prose sparkle. She sometimes draws illustrations for the magazine, too. She’s worked at High Country News since 1990. Her dad and brother have followed her to Paonia, where she lives in a century-old house with her exceptionally large cat, Gumbo.

email: diane at hcn.org

Doris Teel

Fulfillment Worker
Location: Colorado

Doris is part of the High Country News mail team and helps to distribute issues of the magazine and other direct mailings to our readers. Doris loves reading HCN, as well as knitting, crocheting and visiting her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren who live nearby. Before coming to HCN, Doris worked at the Paonia Home Care Center, and she’s been a Delta County, Colorado, resident since 1960.

Jonathan Thompson

Contributing Editor
Location: Bulgaria (yes, Bulgaria)

Jonathan Thompson is a native Westerner with deep roots in southwestern Colorado. He owned and edited the Silverton Standard & the Miner newspaper in the tiny town of Silverton, Colo., and was the editor-in-chief of High Country News from 2007 to 2010. He was a 2011-12 Ted Scripps fellow in environmental journalism at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Now he lives in Sofia, Bulgaria, with his wife and two daughters and is writing a book about the Gold King Mine disaster. 

email: jonathan at hcn.org

Follow @jonnypeace

Sarah Tory

Correspondent
Location: Colorado

Growing up in Toronto, Sarah Tory devoured books on mountaineering, learned to ski on the modest yet icy slopes several hours away and became an avid rock climber and runner. The summers after her high school graduation in New Hampshire and freshman year at Williams College in Massachusetts, she returned to the Canadian Rockies, where she cleaned cabins at a lodge – and encountered grizzly bears.

Sarah, who recently completed her MFA from Columbia University in New York, has covered environmental issues for the English-language Santiago Times in Chile and worked on a documentary about mining in Peru. She and a friend once biked 5,000 kilometers through Argentina and Chile, ending in Argentinas Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world. "Ramona," her trusty touring bike, accompanied her to Paonia, but her interest in a mountain bike is growing daily. 

email: sarahtory at hcn.org

Follow @tory_sarah

Cindy Wehling

Art Director
Location: Colorado

Cindy has been responsible for making High Country News look its best since 1990, including shepherding its transition from newspaper to magazine and from black and white to full color. A former newspaper reporter and editor, she works with photographers and artists and heads up the design and production of the magazine. Cindy and her husband, Don Olsen, also work on the family farm and are continuing to add on to the Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired Usonian house they built overlooking their hayfields.

email: cindy at hcn.org

Alan Wells

IT Manager
Location: Colorado

Alan is a Colorado native who has always been entranced by the beauty and uniqueness that is the state, whether building trails during his time with the Youth Open Space program or mountain biking through the Rockies. Alan’s fascination with technology began at a young age when he deconstructed the family computer and eventually learned to put it back together in working order.

Alan graduated in 2013 with a bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering from the University of Colorado. Prior to joining High Country News, Alan refurbished and recycled personal and enterprise IT equipment, helping to complete the end stages of the hardware life-cycle in an ethical and sustainable manner. He continues to pursue a connection with the natural beauty of Colorado and the West, and researches digital logistics and the impact of ubiquitous technology on individuals and societies.

email: alanw at hcn.org

Tay Wiles

Correspondent
Location: California

Tay was based in Paonia as the online editor at High Country News from 2013 to 2015, and deputy editor digital in 2016. She is now a correspondent based in California. Tay writes about public lands, people and power in the West. 

email: taywiles at hcn.org

Follow @taywiles

Mary Zachman

Accounts and Office Assistant
Location: Colorado

Mary grew up in Santa Barbara, California, and lived on the west coast of Florida. The West called her back, and she moved to Colorado in 2009, first landing Montrose and then in Ridgway. In 2015 she found Paonia and has felt at home ever since. Mary shares her home with her husband, John, and their two dogs. She has three grown kids who followed her to Colorado. Mary loves hiking and exploring the beautiful Colorado landscapes. In addition to her work at HCN, Mary does bookkeeping for KVNF and a solar company, and works at a local home bakery. Mary’s passion is real, healthy, organic food, and she loves spending time cooking with the bounty that Paonia offers. 

email: maryz at hcn.org

Joshua Zaffos

Correspondent
Location: Colorado

Josh has been writing for HCN since his internship in 2002, reporting from nearly every Western state along the way. His work has also appeared in numerous print and online publications, and can be viewed at joshuazaffos.com. Josh holds a master’s degree from Yale School Forestry and Environmental Studies. He lives in Fort Collins, Colo., where he also teaches natural resources communications at Colorado State University.

email: joshuazaffos at yahoo.com

Follow @jzaffos