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Stefani Farris

Aside from brief stints in Alaska and Washington State, Stefani has lived in Wyoming since the mid-1990s, when she transferred to the University of Wyoming to finish her bachelor’s degree in English. Stefani holds an M.F.A. in creative writing, and has been a writing resident at Wyoming’s Ucross Foundation and the Island Institute in Sitka, Alaska. She has been awarded two literature fellowships from the Wyoming Arts Council, as well as that organization’s Doubleday Award for women writers and its Blanchan Award for nature writing. Her work appears in a number of literary journals around the country. In addition to working at various Wyoming nonprofits over the years, Stefani has also volunteered in the field with the National Park Service’s Yellowstone Wolf Project, spending two months tracking and studying the park’s wolves. She lives in Lander with her husband and son.

Member Profile: Kathy Jenkins

Posted on by Stefani Farris

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One of the first things Kathy Jenkins did after retiring from her position as a staff attorney for a Wyoming Supreme Court justice was reach out to a Wyoming Outdoor Council board member to ask about volunteer opportunities. After a career in which she’d felt limited in her ability to get involved in advocacy and nonprofit work, Kathy was ready to roll up her sleeves to protect a place she loved.

That was back in 2016. Now Kathy serves on the executive committee of the Outdoor Council’s board of directors and has hosted two successful outreach events in her Cheyenne home with her husband, Mike Shonsey.

She has also become one of the Council’s staunchest supporters.

“The energy at WOC these days is palpable,” Kathy said. “Lisa McGee has pulled together a highly skilled, energetic, and committed staff and it’s exciting to watch them do their work at the legislature and in other public arenas around the state.”

Born and raised in Casper, Kathy’s passion for conservation stems from a lifelong connection to Wyoming first forged by her parents, who moved here in 1948 so her father could pursue a master’s degree in geology. Despite their different backgrounds — Kathy’s mother grew up in a comfortable home in Oakland, Calif., and her father on a small farm in the Appalachian Mountains with no indoor plumbing or electricity — they both embraced Wyoming’s wild places.

It was a shared love they passed down to their daughter. “Thanks to my father, I grew up learning about the unrivaled geology in Wyoming. And thanks to both my parents, I grew up camping, hiking, and fishing all over the state.”

Those firsthand experiences with Wyoming’s rugged backyard nurtured Kathy as a child, and they continue to nurture her today. An avid hiker, backpacker, and cross-country skier, Kathy understands the importance of preserving Wyoming’s special public lands, wildlife, and clean air and water — not only for her own enjoyment, but for the benefit of generations to come.  

She also understands just how much is at stake right now.

New policies out of Washington, D.C., that prioritize fossil fuel extraction over other uses of public lands have put millions of acres of wild lands and sensitive habitat — the heart of our state’s outdoor heritage — in the crosshairs. The same policies also threaten Wyoming’s clean air and water, and exacerbate conditions that cause climate change.

“These are perilous times for our environment,” Kathy said. “It’s urgent that we do all we can to protect what makes Wyoming unique.”

For Kathy, doing all she can to protect Wyoming means donating not only her time, energy, and experience to the Outdoor Council, but giving her financial support as well.

She understands the importance of ensuring that Wyoming’s homegrown statewide conservation group has the necessary resources — year after year — to advocate effectively for the issues she cares so deeply about. And she urges others who share her concern for Wyoming’s wild places to join her in making a meaningful gift to the Council.

“Do it,” she said. “Give as much as you can.”

“Every dollar you give will be thoughtfully, strategically, and carefully spent to protect the things you love most about Wyoming.”

— KATHY JENKINS, BOARD MEMBER

WOC is doing incredible work right now,” she added. “It’s great to be a part of that.”

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Member Profile: Day Scott

Posted on by Stefani Farris

Listen to naturalist, outdoor educator, and new WOC member Day Scott talk about her journey from Los Angeles to Wyoming and it’s clear she’s hardwired to forge connections and build community.

In the six months since moving to Lander, Day has become a regular volunteer and photographer with a pet rescue organization, helped out at the farmers’ market, served as a wilderness first responder for local events, and had her wildlife photography featured on the Only in Wyoming media company’s Facebook page. The connections she’s made have led to continuous house- and dog-sitting opportunities, a marketing job at NOLS, dinner invitations from nearby campers, and, most recently, to meeting a group of likeminded people eager to learn the ins and outs of advocacy.

Last month, Day graduated from WOC’s inaugural Conservation Leadership Institute. Of everything she learned, she was especially interested to discover that nearly all the presenters over the eight-week course highlighted one theme as the basis of successful advocacy: relationship building. That term is used a lot these days, “but it really is the basis of life,” she said. “It’s so important. This is it!”

  Day moved to Lander last spring, after taking a class with the Wilderness Medicine Institute of NOLS. She’d been living in L.A. for more than a decade, where she’d worked as a technical writer for a major social media company and then as a naturalist and manager of environmental education and outreach for a state ecological reserve. She also spearheaded a wetlands restoration project and, most recently, had started an environmental-based summer camp for kids. She enjoyed her work, but needed a change from the crowds and the pace.

  She found that change in Wyoming. Soon after coming to Lander, Day drove through Sinks Canyon and up to a lake on the Shoshone National Forest. “I literally cried. I thought, how can this exist here? It’s just here and I have access to it. And how can people in L.A. survive and be happy when they don’t have this?”

  Day admitted that in the beginning she didn’t know what to expect from Lander. She was nervous about how she’d be perceived as a black woman in a predominantly white small town. “At first, I got a lot of stares,” she said. But she pushed through the discomfort of being alone, and began making friends and connections. Soon, word was out that she needed a place to live, and one thing led to another. “Someone let me stay at their house who didn’t even know me — turned over their dogs and house to me … that gave me such a sense of community and total trust. And that’s happened here more than once.”

  That sense of community, coupled with Wyoming’s awe-inspiring landscapes, have made Day feel she’s found her home here. “I feel like I need Lander in my life,” she said. As for why she joined WOC, she said that after belonging to bigger, national groups, she was excited to be part of a local, statewide conservation organization. “When I found out about WOC and what they do, making a difference just seemed easier.”