WINNEMUCCA - Shooting the West, the Winnemucca photography experience, will be 26 years old in 2014, and will have a new face at the helm as executive director - Brenda Heintz.
Heintz has been a Shooting the West participant, volunteer, assistant, and will now head the photography symposium.
Shooting the West began 24 years ago through the efforts of two local women, Linda Dufurrena and Sherry Allen, working with the Winnemucca Convention and Visitors Authority. The two turned their vision of a premiere event for Winnemucca into a yearly tradition that brings some of the best photography artists in the world together with a couple of hundred photography enthusiasts who want to learn more about their craft.
The Shooting the West photography symposium developed over its first two decades without a change in leadership. Dufurrena and Allen continued as the head volunteers for the event's first 20 years.
Stuart Scofield began assuming the lead volunteer position of executive director in 2000, and with ongoing help from Shooting the West's other volunteers, continued to develop the now 5-day photography symposium.
Shooting the West is in the midst of another reorganization this year, because Stuart Scofield and his wife Lauren are in the process of moving to property in Oregon.
Scofield, who has already wrapped up preparations for Shooting the West 2014, will still be creative adviser, but a new face, that of Brenda Heintz, is transitioning in. Heintz gave volunteer time to the program two years ago, then served as Scofield's assistant last year, which should make for a seamless transition.
Each year Shooting the West volunteers begin organizing the next year's photography symposium as soon as the current year's symposium is finished.
Without even taking time to bask in the glow of another successful program, they start making arrangements with the photography experts who will teach classes and share their photography secrets the next year.
They do the reporting and administrative work for last year's grants, followed shortly thereafter by work on the grant applications for the coming year's program. Budgets and financial reports need to be assembled, and the volunteers are already considering how the 2014 printed program should look, what travel and accommodation arrangements need to be made for the symposium presenters and a hundred other details.
Heintz said she was surprised to learn that it takes over $100,000 to put on the Shooting the West photography symposium. Most of that money goes to pay the masters of the craft who draw photography lovers to Winnemucca year after year.
Heintz said one of her focuses will be to get the community more involved with Shooting the West.
"I want to continue to use this phenomenally successful program as a community builder," she said.
That's in keeping with the goal of the founders of Shooting the West. Heintz said she was interested to learn from other volunteers that economic development was one of the Duffurena and Allen's strongest drives to develop Shooting the West in Winnemucca.
"They wanted to promote the community of Winnemucca," said Heintz.
Certainly, the symposium gives the local economy a shot in the arm during its very early spring program dates (March), but it has gone far beyond that impact and has promoted Winnemucca in a positive light to many who would formerly have said, "Winne-where?"
Heintz brings some unique ideas of her own, along with a strong nonprofit leadership background, that should serve the organization very well.
She's originally from northern California, where she grew up enjoying three of her lifelong passions - playing soccer, riding horses and photography.
When a knee injury ended her soccer career while playing in Europe, she continued to share her love of soccer by coaching a girls soccer team and her love of horses by working with children with traumatic brain injuries using Hippotherapy (a physical, occupational and speech treatment strategy using contact with horses as part of the therapy).
Heintz and her husband Nick moved to Winnemucca 2.5 years ago and she has found a way to continue to combine several of her passions with her new Humboldt County location.
The connection with Shooting the West is obvious; part of the use of the Imlay-area property will be to keep horses - some of which she hopes to use in equine therapy programs - focusing on children, veterans (through the "Wounded Warriors" program) as well as the victims of domestic violence and their children.
"I fell in love with the program and the community," said Heintz, adding, "When my husband and I moved here, this community was so welcoming; I want to do whatever I can now to give back." Heintz is also an enthusiastic member of Women in Mining.
Heintz actually lives in Imlay and commutes to Winnemucca three times a week to work in the Shooting the West office.
"We were looking for land and found 10 acres right at the base of Star Peak. It's beautiful."
One more thing Shooting the West volunteers are working on right now is preparations for "Shooting the Fair," a Shooting the West spin-off that started last year. Instructor Larry Angier from Jackson, Calif., will again travel to Winnemucca to lead instruction for participants.
Heintz said, "Larry is one of the staff photographers for Shooting the West. He's been a supporter for a very long time."
Participants in last year's program enjoyed the full "backstage access" to all the fair's events, as well as the expert hands-on photography instruction and practice. Some of the photographs taken are used by the Winnemucca Convention and Visitors Authority for promotional materials.
Dates for "Shooting the Fair" Aug 30, Sept. 1-2. The cost is $140. Heintz said registration will open in the next week or two. Registration information and instructions will be listed on the Shooting the West website.[[In-content Ad]]
