CINAMMON SIOUX PRIEST
HEATHER RAE PRIEST
Co-founders of Priest Family Revival and the Antelope Foundation
Boise, Idaho
Our dad, Randy Priest, opened his first hat shop in Challis, Idaho, in 1980, and later on in Eagle and then Donnelly. He was loved by everyone, a cowboy mule-packer who knew how to make people feel welcome. When he died, we realized, oh, we’re now the matriarchs of the family: Now, Priest Family Revival is matriarchal. We’ve been in Idaho for generations, and we come from people who work the land. We come from structural poverty, so why wouldn’t we just build from who we are instead of borrowing from the imaginations of capitalism? We wanted to build our business like our dad did, so we started training post-incarceration women in beading and jewelry-making, instilling a sense of dignity and value, the idea that your time has value. We have backgrounds in the recovery space and in working in prisons and post-incarceration case management. And so, we put all that together, because this company was always meant to be built in community.
We welcome reader letters. Email High Country News at editor@hcn.org or submit a letter to the editor. See our letters to the editor policy.
This article appeared in the October 2026 print edition of the magazine with the headline “#IAMTHEWEST.”

