We often say — and are proud to say — that High Country News is a reader-supported nonprofit. The “reader- supported” part is straightforward: You, our community of readers, provide three-quarters of our operating revenue through your subscriptions and donations. This organization would literally not exist without you.
That’s why our Community Pages, which have a new look in this issue, are in the middle of the magazine: You are literally the heart of this organization.
The nonprofit part refers to our status with the IRS — HCN is registered under section 501(c)3 of the federal tax code. That means that your donations are tax-exempt, and that we’re governed by a volunteer board of directors who work with the senior management team to ensure that the business is responsibly managed and financially sound.
Our board members serve three-year terms, with a limit of three consecutive terms. And so we bring in new members regularly, seeking out folks with a strong commitment to our mission, the skills necessary for running a nonprofit, and identities and backgrounds that reflect the diversity of the West.
In January, we welcomed four new board members. Here’s a little about each:
Tyrone Beason grew up in a working-class Black community in Bowling Green, Kentucky. “My people weren’t part of the Great Migration. I was born among the people who stayed,” he told us during his board interview. In his youth, he worked on his grandfather’s farm. “I grew up knowing where food came from. I wouldn’t have called myself an environmentalist, but knew I was a part of the ecosystem.”
He fell in love with the West during a college trip to Oregon and spent years as a staff writer and multimedia storyteller at the Seattle Times, where he became a beloved mentor to young journalists of color. His most recent job was as a staff writer at the Los Angeles Times, where he covered the 2020 election, tribal land co-management, reparations for racist land seizures and a whole lot more.
Heather MacSlarrow found HCN in college and says it has shaped her view of the West and her work with nonprofits across the region. She’s currently based in Missoula and serves as the executive director of the Society for Wilderness Stewardship, which hosts the Wilderness Policy Center and builds systems and processes for high quality wilderness management. She has been a force in expanding the conversation about wilderness, and land stewardship, to include more diverse voices, including those of Indigenous people. The work has pushed boundaries within agency and nonprofit circles, she said, but it only makes sense: “All cultures come from wilderness,” she said. “Our cultural norms come from landscapes.”
Amy Maestas grew up in Magna, Utah, near the south end of the Great Salt Lake. She has built a career around innovation in journalism, rising through the ranks at the Durango Herald before heading home to help the Salt Lake Tribune transition to a nonprofit. In 2020, she joined the Solutions Journalism Network, where she ran the Local Media Project, funding journalism collaboratives across the country.
That job led to her most recent position as director of the Collaborative Journalism Resource Hub at Montclair State University. (Montclair is in New Jersey, but Amy lives in Utah.) She’ll be a great help as we build the Western Environmental Reporting Collaborative. A project like this requires time and resources, she said, but “we know what it takes to make these things work.”
Mike Tansey grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland, although he’s lived longer in the U.S. than the U.K. at this point. He lives in Denver now and considers himself “mostly retired” from a career in publishing, in which he found himself smack-dab in the middle of the print-to-digital evolution. “With print, you threw something out there, and you had no clue what people used it for,” he said. “In today’s world, you have phenomenal metrics about how many people are reading, how far they’re getting into a story, and how you can tie that into communities you’re trying to serve.”
Mike found HCN via climate reporting in the Los Angeles Times that referenced our work, and believes strongly in our mission. He’d like to help with fundraising and revenue development, and we’re more than happy to put him to work!
Welcome aboard, Tyrone, Heather, Amy and Mike! And thanks to all of those who responded to our call for applicants. We were truly touched by the outpouring of interest.
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This article appeared in the March 2026 print edition of the magazine with the headline “Welcome, new HCN board members.”
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