Making the Move
In college, I had a professor named Bill Reader who guided me to follow my passion with horses into journalism. I had already done my journalism internships in South Africa and Washington, D.C., and I was dead set on working on traditional newspapers covering foreign conflict and human rights. But the economy was crashing (in 2008), and newspaper jobs were hard to come by. The horse market, though, was hanging in there, and magazine jobs writing about horsemanship were still available, though scarce.
That was OK with me—I’d dreamed of moving West since I was a kid, but I’d tabled those dreams for most of my college education at Ohio University because I was so focused on the developing world.
I remember applying from Texas to North Dakota and everywhere in between, at every breed association, small town paper, and ag-communications job I could find. Professor Reader looked at my list of places I’d applied and said, “You know there are other places to work than the High Plains.”
I’d grown up in Pittsburgh, always thinking there was someplace more cowboy I belonged. So, when given the chance to pack up everything I owned and start fresh, I wanted to take it. Thankfully, this very magazine was moving to Colorado, and the team had their assistant editor job wide open. I jumped at the chance, and I threw three horses into a trailer and headed west.
In this issue, we have a story by one of our contributing editors, Laurel Scott, about doing just that—packing up and moving out, to live your dream horse life (page 76). We picked five destinations ripe for transplants, with opportunities abounding to get out and ride with like-minded folks who enjoy their horses as much as you do.
One of the places Scott highlights is Arizona, and our trail-riding friends Kent and Charlene Krone detail a ride for the ages in the Grand Canyon State. Plus, the Travel section this issue focuses on Tanque Verde Ranch in Tucson. What’s more, Arizona’s Al Dunning, our legendary and longtime contributor, pens his own article on the elusive “feel.”
I’m not supposed to choose favorites, but I think I’ve got to tell you that this issue truly stands out to me with its mix of content and the contributions of our whole team. And a quick note—this is the first cover photo for Assistant Editor Michaela Jaycox.
She’s been with our company almost two years, and she’s been a quick study under our own photographer extraordinaire, Managing Editor Nichole Chirico. The cover subject is Mica Chartier,
wife of our newest Horse&Rider OnDemand contributor R.L. Chartier. You can see his cow work and foundational training videos rolling out in the coming months at OnDemand. HorseandRider.com.