As the magazine celebrates 35 years, allow us to thank 35 notables whose key roles helped make the anniversary possible.
Kurt Rheinheimer
A magazine turning 35 is a wondrous thing, perhaps especially to he who has been honored, privileged and delighted to sit in its editor’s chair since the beginning. And what better time for a pause to thank those who have made the 35 years possible, with the caveat that mentioning 35 inevitably leaves out many* who also contributed.
These wonderful people are listed in the order of their first appearance in the magazine, beginning with the June/July, 1988 inaugural issue. Photos are as close as we have in time to that first appearance in the magazine’s publisher’s box.
1 of 22
Richard Wells
2 of 22
David Harris
3 of 22
Sue Clauson-Wicker
4 of 22
Elizabeth Hunter
5 of 22
Steve Shaluta
6 of 22
Joan Vannorsdall
7 of 22
Marla Hardee Milling
8 of 22
Liz Houhoulis
9 of 22
Theresa Lewis
10 of 22
Patty Jackson
11 of 22
Joe Tennis
12 of 22
Suzi Findley
13 of 22
Cara Ellen Modisett
14 of 22
William Alexander
15 of 22
Gwen Clarke
16 of 22
J. Scott Graham
17 of 22
Deborah Huso
18 of 22
Janette Spencer
19 of 22
Leonard Adkins
20 of 22
Jeff Wood
21 of 22
Shiree Carr
22 of 22
Cynthia Bruggeman
Hugh Morton
1. Richard Wells (Inaugural Issue), founder, publisher, fount of ideas, best mentor and boss anyone could have, with a leadership style infused with generosity, humor and loyalty to his employees. Fourteen years after he launched (at age 26!) The Roanoker magazine, Richard sent Gail and me on a working vacation trip through the southern Appalachians toward finding writers and material with which to start a regional magazine. The rest, as they say, is history, a bit of which he touches on in this issue’s Mountain Q & A (see page 80). Still lives in Roanoke and spends time in the North Carolina mountains as well.
Paul Calhoun
2. David Harris (Inaugural Issue) was the magazine’s talented first art director; a quiet young man who kept his head down but nonetheless found a way to surprise us all, each holiday season, by sending Elvis’s version of “Blue Christmas” booming out via the office PA system. He left the company in 1992 to co-found the successful branding and ad firm now known as Mikula-Harris, just down the road in Vinton, Virginia.
3. Su Clauson-Wicker (Inaugural Issue) had a piece on alternative energy in that issue and has since contributed scores of great features and shorts, with her favorite “beats” being West Virginia, odd places to sleep and the ups and (mostly) downs of the water level at Virginia’s Mountain Lake. She has authored several outdoor-oriented books, became a contributing editor in 2007 and still writes for BRC from her home in Blacksburg, Virginia.
Helen Barranger
4. Elizabeth Hunter (Inaugural Issue) contributed a profile to the first issue and soon became—though her features and award-winning column, “From the Farm”—the heart and soul of the magazine. She is the most-awarded writer in the magazine’s history. She retired from writing for us in 2017 and remained a cherished friend of the magazine until her death in 2022, at her long-time home in the mountain community of Bandana, North Carolina. Read our remembrance of her here: blueridgecountry.com/EHunter
5. Hugh Morton (Inaugural Issue), the owner of Grandfather Mountain, world-class photographer and recipient of North Carolina’s highest award not only provided the photograph for our first cover, but also contributed additional photos and covers as well as information for environmental features over the first decade of the magazine. Mr. Morton, as he was called by nearly all who knew him, died in 2006 at age 85. There is an exhibit of his photography this summer at Grandfather Mountain: grandfather.com/morton-photo-exhibit.
6. Paul Calhoun (Inaugural Issue) started the magazine on its way to visiting hundreds of great mountain small towns with his piece on Cashiers/Highlands, North Carolina, and contributed dozens of words-and-photo packages on mountain people and places over the ensuing decade or so before embarking elsewhere. Now lives again in the Roanoke area.
7. Helen Barranger (Sept/Oct ’88) realized her life-long dream to be a professional writer in our pages, contributing meticulously researched and written stories on things like the tragic 1969 flooding of Nelson County, Virginia, the frescoes of Ashe County, North Carolina, and many more. The magazine’s first contributing editor died in 2020 at age 98.
Bruce Ingram
8. Steve Shaluta (Sept/Oct ’88) was the magazine’s go-to cover photographer in the early years, with four consecutive covers from the second issue through the fifth. The former photographer for the West Virginia Department of Commerce (1985-2015) still contributes images to the magazine from his retirement spot in Florida.
9. Joan Vannorsdall (May/June ’89) has been, since that first issue’s piece on West Virginia’s Sweet Chalybeate Springs, the magazine’s most important history writer. Her first piece on the Melungeons served to bring the publication to a wider audience and to establish its credibility as a voice of the region. She is the author of two fine novels, a former member of the Alleghany County, Virginia, Board of Supervisors and continues to contribute features and her “Our Blue Ridge Towns” column from her beloved town of Clifton Forge, Virginia. She is a contributing editor.
10. Bruce Ingram (May/June ‘89). His interests in the outdoors in general and in specifics ranging from birds and wild edibles to paddling and fishing the region’s rivers have been a part the magazine since its second year. He is a long-time teacher in the Botetourt County, Virginia, school system, has spent his adult life working to own and preserve land and is gloriously married to his long-time sweetheart, with whom he shares the grandparenting duties that are the substance of his column, “Gifts of the Land.”
Jo Diedrich
11. Marla Hardee Milling (Sept/Oct ’89) has long been the magazine’s go-to for all things Asheville and many things North Carolina. She is the author of three books about Asheville and another about North Carolina travel. Her pieces about Thomas Wolfe and Zelda Fitzgerald are among the most popular in the magazine’s history. She became a contributing editor in 2013 and continues to contribute from her home in Asheville.
12. Liz Houhoulis began as an account rep in ’93 and served as lead sales person for the magazine for most of the years until 2014. The annual Travel Guide in each Jan/Feb issue was her conception. She passed away in 2017 at age 56.
13. Theresa Lewis (Sept/Oct ’93) began with the company as a typesetter for all our publications, and led the company into the realms of email, electronic production, databases and perhaps 10 other innovations we take for granted today, all while serving as the most amazing assistant/fact-checker/Radar O’Reilly a guy could have. Her ability to see everything coming and to figure out anything at all that the rest of us couldn’t resulted in a company-wide jolt when she retired in 2019.
Pat & Chuck Blackley
14. Jo Diedrich (Sept/Oct ‘94) began her distinguished sales career with the magazine and has come back to it from time to time over the years as she has become Leisure’s second-longest-tenured employee and its record-revenue sales person. For most of the last 20 years her primary title has been sales director for the Virginia Travel Guide as she has served as a leading face of the company all over Virginia and beyond.
15. Pat & Chuck Blackley (March/April ‘95). Pick any of the seven Blue Ridge Country-coverage-area states, or most any U.S. state for that matter, click into Pat & Chuck’s Smug Mug page and you will find . . . well, pretty much whatever you need in the way of a beautiful outdoor image. There’ve been many times over the years where we’ve lacked a key photo until the Blackleys sent along a dozen shots of the entity for us to choose from. They continue their work from Staunton, Virginia.
D. Gail Fleenor
16. Patty Jackson (Sept/Oct ‘95) has served as production director for all of Leisure’s publications since that year, guiding the company through paper crises, transportation tangles, printer negotiations (through which she earned her nickname as “The Velvet Hammer”) and a thousand other invisible details mostly known only to her and which parallel the life of an umpire—tireless, invisible work with too-little notice.
17. D. Gail Fleenor (Jan/Feb ‘97). The magazine’s third contributing editor was a hard-working a freelance travel writer for more than a decade. She lives in Bristol, Virginia, and is a contributing editor for Progressive Grocer magazine.
18. Joe Tennis (May/June ‘97). Specializing in trains and spooky stuff but always covering whatever’s needed, has been proud—as have we—for contributing to every issue for decades. Became a contributing editor in 2012 and continues the career he began in 1993 at the Bristol Herald Courier.
Nancy Henderson
19. Suzi Findley (Jan/Feb ‘98) handled the nuts and bolts—and lost copies and Post Office snafus and subscriber complaints and back issue finds—of the magazine’s circulation and subscriptions department for 25 years marked by unfailing customer service until . . . well, she retires after this issue.
20. Denise Koff (Jan/Feb ‘98) began her time at Leisure as circulation director and grew into a lead role with the company as vice president of client services over the last dozen or so years of a career as distinguished, productive, insightful and dedicated as any in the company’s history aside from its founder. She retired in April of this year with the bittersweet best wishes of all who enjoyed and benefitted from her gentle and innately inspired and brilliant leadership.
21. Nancy Henderson (March/April ‘98) began the “Creature Feature” department in that issue and continues to contribute it these 25 years later. She’s the author of two books and has had her writing featured in periodicals ranging from American Profile to Womans Day. She lives in Chattanooga.
Kim Green
22. Cara Ellen Modisett (Sept/Oct ‘98). Cara joined us as The Best Intern There Could Ever Be for that issue, became the magazine’s advertising coordinator with the next issue and within a year was the associate editor. She served as managing editor from ‘05 to ‘10 and during that time not only sustained the usual content but also infused a dose of celebrity into the magazine, bringing the likes of Ken Burns, Kathy Mattea and Dolly Parton to our pages. Since she left Leisure in 2010 she has been a radio host, professional musician and college instructor, and is now a priest in the Episcopal Church in Staunton, Virginia.
23. William Alexander (Sept/Oct ‘99) served as art director and company clown (the perfect foil for the eminent and deeply conscientious Cara Modisett) for five years until 2004 when he moved to a college teaching position and then to founding Williamalexander.co, which focuses on web design and overall development for small businesses. The one-time confirmed-as-could-be bachelor lives with his wife and two children in Roanoke County.
Fred Sauceman
24. Gwen Clarke (Jan/Feb ‘00). That issue was the beginning of the annual almanac—a collection of delightful recipes, tidbits, trivia, weather and much more. Still lives in Stuart, Virginia, from where she rejoiced with us when what we thought might be impossible occurred: The similarly quirky-minded Ginny Neil agreed to take over the fun and fancy of the almanac.
Her sales career at the company saw contributions to Blue Ridge Country, and even more significantly to sister magazines, The Roanoker and Mountain Homes, where she established sales records that have not since been approached. She is the owner-operator since 2012 of Estate Liquidation Innovations in Knoxville, Tennessee.
He has spent decades photographing the Blue Ridge Parkway and Great Smoky Mountains National Park and undertook a book on the parkway with Elizabeth Hunter in 2006. His first Blue Ridge Country cover was the Linn Cove Viaduct in Sept/Oct ‘02. Continues to provide great images; see last issue for parkway photo essay shots.
25. Kim Green (March/April ‘00). Her sales career at the company saw contributions to Blue Ridge Country, and even more significantly to sister magazines, The Roanoker and Mountain Homes, where she established sales records that have not since been approached. She is the owner-operator since 2012 of Estate Liquidation Innovations in Knoxville, Tennessee.
26. J. Scott Graham (May/June ‘01). He has spent decades photographing the Blue Ridge Parkway and Great Smoky Mountains National Park and undertook a book on the parkway with Elizabeth Hunter in 2006. His first Blue Ridge Country cover was the Linn Cove Viaduct in Sept/Oct ‘02. Continues to provide great images; see last issue for parkway photo essay shots.
27. Deborah Huso (Sept/Oct ‘01). As precise and exacting a writer as we’ve ever had, she became a contributing editor in ‘04, not long before she moved on to further her role as founding partner and creative director, Write Well Media, which she launched in 2002 and which since has expanded and become WWM, based in Charlottesville, Virginia.
28. Janette Spencer (Jan/Feb ‘05). We were chagrined to lose Janette’s considerable design talents in ‘09, only to be delighted when she returned in ‘18 to become senior art director of the magazine. Her speed and excellence in putting together a publication are evident on every page of this issue. She also provides keen incentive to the editor who works to keep up with her in the realization of that lovely work.
Ginny Neil
29. Leonard Adkins (March/April ‘05). You decide you want coverage of hiking and walking in the Southern Appalachians, you go out and see if you can get he who has walked the Georgia-to-Maine Appalachian National Scenic Trail five times and is the author of more than 20 books on the outdoors, many of them award winners. Long a resident of the Roanoke area , he moved to Richmond for a few years but recently returned to the Virginia mountains.
30. Fred Sauceman (March/April ‘08). You decide you want coverage of all things food in the Southern Appalachians, you go out and see if you can get he who teaches a course at East Tennessee State called “The Foodways of Appalachia,” hosts a TV program called “Food with Fred,” who has published six food-and-recipe books and who has directed seven documentary films about food. He travels with his wife Jill to contribute the “Flavors” column each issue.
31. Jeff Wood (Nov/Dec ‘10). Our resident Hokie joined us fresh out of Blacksburg as associate editor and has since broadened his knowledge, expertise, insight and attention to detail into nearly every aspect of the magazine and the company. He became digital publications editor in ‘13 and now carries the title of senior online editor and director of audience development which even at its length does not to do full justice to his contributions.
32. Ginny Neil (Jan/Feb ‘11). Her first piece for us spawned a favorite-ever cover blurb (“Ginny Had a Little Lamb”) and gave notice of what was to come: a valued writer whose love of nature, considerable artistic talent and quirky views of life in general would render her a contributing editor in ‘21 and whose artworks grace her column “Singing in the Garden” and the annual almanac in each Jan/Feb issue. Her first picture book, “The Glorious Forest that Fire Built,” goes on sale in August.
Molly Dugger Brennan
33. Molly Dugger Brennan (March/April ‘15) hit the ground running with her first “Mill Creek Stories” column in that issue (“I’m not ashamed to say I’ve eaten as many as five meals in one day so I wouldn’t miss out on a single barbecue opportunity”) and has rolled along since. Leads a second life as a dog trainer and whisperer in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.
34. Angela Minor (March/April ‘18). Her first piece for us (“Top 15 State Parks for Birding”) served to announce not only two of her favorite things, but also what she’d become to the magazine: our widest-reaching, primary all-seven-states travel writer. She became a contributing editor in ‘21 and continues to contribute (see her Magical History Tour this issue) from her home in Cleveland, Tennessee.
35. Cynthia Bruggeman (May/June ‘21). A wonderful twist of good fortune took place in early ‘21 when our need for a sales person coincided with the wish of the former director of advertising & strategic partnerships for Colorado-based Trail Runner magazine to move back east. Our new associate publisher brought her sales running shoes to Virginia for a sustained sprint that has resulted in record sales over most of the recent issues, translating to the pages for this extended column.
Thank you, Cynthia, and thank you to all above, all below and hundreds more, for 35 Blue Ridge Country years. And for more to come.
Angela Minor
Speaking of the next 35 years, as Denise Koff exits, a long-time Leisure star ascends. Shiree Carr, who joined the company as an accounting assistant in 1999 and has since served as human resources director, sales director and salesperson supreme among others, has taken on the VP/leadership role that Denise vacated. The business team of Shiree and Cynthia can only mean good things for the magazine’s future.
*We’ll still leave people out in mentioning writers Nan Chase, Rodger Doss, Jerry DeLaughter, Sue Eisenfeld, Emily Grey, Cat McCue, Linda Shockley, Lauren Stepp, Greg Trafidlo, Gary Winkler and David Witkege; photographers Kevin Adams, Tim Barnwell, Todd Bush, Tom Dietrich, Jerry Greer, Len Holland, Mike Koenig, Bill Lea, Ronnie Luttrell, David McMasters, Joshua Moore, Nicholas Moore, Ian Plant, Norman Poole, Ed Rehbein, Ryan Rice, Vicki Rozema, Charles Shoffner, Stephen Schoof, J. Smilanic (Dawnfire Photography), Robert Stephens and Jerry Whaley; long-time friends of the magazine Rupert Cutler, Bob Kinsey and Harris Prevost; and ace proofreader Karen Neathawk.
The Three-Legged Stool
Quick story. As vice president of client services, it has been my great honor to train and mentor our incredible staff. Each one can recite the analogy of a successful magazine’s resemblance to a three-legged stool. Award-caliber editorial/design, strong advertising sales and devoted subscribers are critical for success. If one leg falls short . . . well, you know what happens.
Denise Koff
With Kurt Rheinheimer at the helm as editor-in-chief since Blue Ridge Country’s inception, his exploration of the culture, history, people and places of the mountains through words and images has become Blue Ridge Country’s hallmark. Kurt’s innate vision, vast editorial expertise and deep love of our coverage area has made him the singularly most important reason for the magazine’s longevity. Thank you, Kurt for all you do. As I retire, I will truly miss our collaborations.
And thank you also to all the advertising partners we have had over the years. Your continued and expanding support is a large reason for our growth. Just yesterday at the doctor’s office (jeez, is that my new normal?), the nurse raved about Blue Ridge Country and all the places she and her husband have visited after learning about them in the magazine. Your advertising messages resonate with our audience, always providing new information and fun places to explore.
Our readers. The third leg of the stool. From market research we know you are smart, with a deep love of history, intellectually curiosity and always up for a scenic drive! Obviously without you, Blue Ridge Country would not exist. I thank you for continuing to be a part of our community. And I look forward to being wowed and surprised as upcoming issues land in my mailbox at home. My hope is that you feel the same and continue to support Blue Ridge Country. —Denise Koff
The story above first appeared in our July / August 2023 issue. For more like it subscribe today or log in with your active BRC+ Membership. Thank you for your support!