About Us
Sun Valley Magazine is the result of a commitment to celebrating life and its many facets here in the Wood River Valley in Central Idaho as paradise, we are not immune to the challenges that affect the outside world, nor, are we critical of the lifestyles of those “less fortunates” who don’t call this Valley home. But everyone needs reminding sometimes of the reasons they live anywhere and it is our position at this magazine that this is our raison de’etres. It gets us up everyday and out asking “Tell me something I don’t know . . .” asking the movers and shakers as well as the workers and families who let us in so we can fill you in on the stories that are the fabric of our life here.
Everyone at this magazine lives what we write about, or knows someone who does. Our goal is to break down the barriers, open eyes, occasionally bring tears, but to always leave a mark on your memory. Our hope is that if you live here too, or just love it here like we do, then some aspect of our magazine resonates.
We don’t claim to be all things to all people, but we are a magazine of the people and written for the people of the Wood River Valley and beyond. It’s a responsibility we take seriously. And it’s one we work hard to perpetuate through all of our publications be it the bi-annual coffee table-worthy Sun Valley Magazine, or our sensible and solution-driven HOME magazine. We’ve created Golf and Hockey magazines for those sports fans and also tackle projects in our custom publishing division that don’t conflict with our mission and high standards, but which allow us to keep bringing you the quality photography and writing that keeps readers coming back.
Although a locally-based magazine, we don’t shy from regional stories and in fact our publications are sold nationally in airports and through Barnes and Noble bookstores.
Thank you for sharing your world so we can share it with others.
Staff
publisher/editor in chief: Laurie C. Sammis
laurie@sunvalleymag.com
associate publisher: Laurie Christian
lauriechristian@sunvalleymag.com
editor: Michael Ames
michael@sunvalleymag.com
art director: Robin Moore Leahy
robinleahy@sunvalleymag.com
senior editor: Greg Stahl
graphic designer/webmaster: Charlotte Hemmings
charlotte@sunvalleymag.com
production director: Julie Molema
julie@sunvalleymag.com
advertising sales: Laurie Christian
lauriechristian@sunvalleymag.com
circulation director: Laurie Christian
lauriechristian@sunvalleymag.com
controller: Linda Murphy
accounting@sunvalleymag.com
copy editor: Patty Healey
editorial intern: Hailey Tucker
art intern: Barrett Brown
Contributors
Paulette Phlipot
Paulette Phlipot is an award-winning food, travel and lifestyle photographer. She is inspired by an endless desire for adventure and a passion for storytelling through images of food, people and the natural elements that surround them. Phlipot was awarded the International Association of Culinary Professionals “Best of Show” Photography Award in 2008. She graduated with honors from the Western Academy of Photography in Victoria, B.C., Canada. When she is not photographing you can find her in the mountains hiking, biking, or skiing or at home in Sun Valley, Idaho, enjoying healthy food and wine with family and friends.
View Paulette's work: Art of Food; Food for Thought; It's Hip to Bowl Spares; Ancestral Spirits; Mountain Oasis; Lemons; Pits Against Nature; Canoodling with Pasta; Construction Academy
Craig Wolfrom
Craig Wolfrom is about as colorful and candid as his images. He has enthusiastically pursued his photography career since the 1990s covering editorial essays, applying a creative photojournalistic approach to weddings, and enjoying all of nature’s elements while capturing adventurous travel and sports images. Craig teaches a few workshops every year and also takes time to mentor high school students interested in photography. The Wood River Valley has been Craig’s home since 2002. He lives in Bellevue with his wife and two children.
View Craig's work: Bux’s; Local Hero; Timing was Everything; Postcard Setting; Quest for Powder; Summer Ice is Nice; In Our Own Backyard; Urbane Urbane
Jason D.B. Kauffman
Jason D.B. Kauffman is an outdoors and environmental writer and photographer based in Missoula, Montana. Jason has written about and photographed endangered wildlife, threatened wildlands, backcountry travel, food, sustainable living and other topics for a variety of publications. His work has been published in Backpacker Magazine, Newwest.net and the Idaho Statesman. He’s currently expanding his writing and photography while also pursuing a master’s degree in Environmental Science and Natural Resource Journalism at the University of Montana in Missoula. In his free time, Jason likes to hike, backpack, fly-fish, mountain bike and cook with his wife, Elizabeth Belts Kauffman.
View Jason's work: 49th Parallel
Van Gordon Sauter
For better or worse, critical decisions of the heart and career get made in bars. At least in Van Gordon Sauter’s lifetime. Whether the bar was 21 in Manhattan (executive vice president, CBS); Billy Goat’s Tavern in Chicago (reporter, Chicago Daily News); Weber’s Saloon in Middletown, Ohio (hod carrier and laborer); a nameless café on the rue Marbeuf (Paris bureau chief, CBS News); or the Danang Vietnam Press Center (correspondent, Detroit Free Press), Sauter knows that barroom decisions tilt to the ill advised, if not the catastrophic. But to men, bars are associated with freedom, camaraderie and a delusion that bad decisions can easily be corrected. Bux’s Place in Challis, Idaho, is a splendid setting for when those issues are settled. Simple rules of conduct are followed. Respect history. Buy a round for the house. Tip the bartender. And toddle with cheer into the bracing mountain night.
View Van Gordon's work: Bux’s; The California Trail; The Specter of Silver City
Dana DuGan
Dana DuGan is always on the search for culture, arts, music and a good time. DuGan has written about just those things for more than a decade in the Wood River Valley for various publications and websites. Most days she can be found in her garden, which happens to have the best view (Carbonate Ridge), or at her laptop in one of the valley's many coffee shops. Both activities connect her to the wider world. Known for a certain New York brashness, she comes by it honestly and means no harm. DuGan is a mother of two sincerely nutty girls, who also believe that “The world belongs to the enthusiast who keeps her cool.”
View Dana's work: V for Vegetable, Local Buzz blog, The Healing Power of Art
Ariel Agenbroad
Ariel Agenbroad serves Canyon and surrounding counties as a University of Idaho Extension educator in horticulture and small farms. She is committed to helping individuals and communities grow. Her areas of specialization include home and market vegetable production, direct marketing of horticultural products, organics and volunteer development. She also coordinates and teaches the Canyon County Master Gardeners, along with dozens of classes and workshops annually. In 2009 she created the Idaho Victory Garden Series, an Extension program designed to help families produce and preserve more food at home. Her latest publication, “Community Supported Agriculture (CSA): a marketing strategy for Idaho’s small-acreage producers”, is now available through the University of Idaho Extension.
View Ariel's work: Art of Food
Kirsten Shultz
Except for a few tears of frustration in the darkroom during finals in art school, photographer Kirsten Shultz cannot remember a time when she did not love photography. As a professional photographer for more than half her life, Kirsten has spent 15 of those years photographing from Sun Valley. Her editorial, wedding and lifestyle images have been internationally published and she has won numerous awards for her work. She has photographed for many national publications and is the photographer of five cookbooks. She continues to photograph projects that showcase her love of food, travel, the arts and weddings. She lives in Bellevue with her husband and daughter, whom she loves to photograph and travel with.
View Kirsten's work: V for Vegetable; The Perfect Winter Wedding; Crafting the Valley; A Day Away; Contentments & Curiosities; Craftsman Profiles
Roland Lane
Roland Lane is a freelance photographer based in the Wood River Valley. Drawing from his background in modeling in NYC and Milan, he was fortunate to work with accomplished photographers like Greg Gorman. While modeling, he discovered his passion for photography. Self-taught, he garnered his knowledge from his experiences in front of the camera and several years of assisting photographers internationally. Prior to moving to Idaho in 1999 with his wife, Yvette, they resided in San Diego, where Roland was a photographer for Harmon Publishing.
View Roland's work: Solutions
Jill Kuraitis
Jill Kuraitis graduated from U.C. Santa Barbara with a theatre degree and worked in TV and movies before arriving in Boise 22 years ago with her husband and children. Devoted to her adopted hometown, she started writing about politics, neighborhoods, business, growth and the environment. Her reporting and columns netted five 2008 Idaho Press Club awards, including two first-place finishes for general excellence in news websites and for best online feature story. Jill makes abstract quilts and prolific flower gardens and never does anything the same way twice.
View Jill's work: At Home
Tal Roberts
Tal Roberts lives in denial. It’s not a river in Africa. Apparently, it’s right here in Ketchum, Idaho. “I don’t want to become a professional photographer. I don’t want photography to lose its fun,” he said. Despite such reluctance, his photos have been run in skateboard and bmx magazines around the world, including Transworld Ride, Dig and The Skateboard Mag. Yet, Tal insists he isn’t a professional photographer. That would be taking himself far too seriously.
View Tal's work: Who Can Save Ketchum, The Lure of Ice.
Pamela Mason Davey
Pamela Mason Davey regularly writes for corporate clients in the travel, cruising, coffee, high-tech and luxury-lifestyle sectors and loves the technology that makes it possible for her to live here, but work “out there.” She lives in Hailey’s Indian Creek with her husband, who is an artist; her daughter, who is a teenager; and her greyhound, who is a beloved supermodel of a dog. Her favorite word is “ointment.”
View Pamela's work: Physical Poetry, The Valley's Dirty Work, Hunger Where it Doesn't Belong, Objects of Affection
Della Sentilles
Della Sentilles was raised in Dallas, Texas, and had never been ice fishing before researching her feature. She purchased her first fishing license, borrowed and wore her first camouflage jacket, caught her first perch and learned that you can never judge a sport by its stereotypes. “Everything we do, say and think is complicated and complex, even something as seemingly simple as ice fishing,” she reports. Now, a first-year law student in Texas, she plans to get back on the ice sometime this winter—at least if it’s not too cold.
View Della's work: The Lure of Ice Fishing, Who Can Save Ketchum?, Tough Times, Easy Pleases
Elissa Kline
Elissa Kline was born in New York City and grew up in Los Angeles. She lived on a ranch near Stanley, Idaho, for 17 years, before moving to Hailey with her family. During her time on the ranch, the self-taught photographer began focusing on details of the natural world—among her first subjects were abstract images of the horses she took care of. What followed was a five-year documentation of the wild horses known as the Challis Herd, with whom she formed an intimate connection.
View Elissa's work: Horse Power, Mountain Mustangs, A Dog's Best Friend, Not So Free To Roam
Patti Murphy
PattI Murphy is a freelance writer, public relations professional and small-business owner who moved to Boise twelve years ago from Phoenix, Arizona. The daughter of a journalist, she grew up with a natural curiosity for just about everything and finds herself asking “why” and “how” a lot. Today she works with a diverse and interesting list of government and corporate clients. As a freelance writer, her articles have appeared in local and national newspapers and magazines and have received several Idaho Press Club awards.
View Patti's work: Idaho's Basque Tables, Endangered Art, The Elegant Barn, Memories of Minidoka
