Mention the James Beard Foundation, and folks think of chic restaurants, white chef’s hats and hand-plated hors d’oeuvres.
My favorite James Beard Award-winner is much more down-home. Los Hernández is a humble eatery housed in a whitewashed, cinder-block edifice in tiny Union Gap, in central Washington. Family members dish up handmade tamales packed with dense masa and a spicy core of chicken, pork or (if you drop by at the right time in spring) asparagus.
The foundation — named for the proto-celebrity chef and Portland, Oregon, native — also honors culinary and food industry leaders, and even food writing.
And now, for the second time, High Country News has won a James Beard Award — this time for work by Laureli Ivanoff, an Inupiaq writer and journalist based in Uŋalaqłiq (Unalakleet), Alaska. Laureli’s column, “The Seasons of Uŋalaqłiq,” describes her experiences living in direct relationship with the land, water, plants and animals.
The award recognized three particularly thought-provoking columns about food- or drink-related topics: “A meal of many seasons,” “Good ice” and “Subsistence abundance.” All were edited by Science and Climate Editor Emily Benson. (HCN won another Beard Award in 2018 for a feature story “The teenage whaler’s tale,” by Julia O’Malley.) You can read all of Laureli’s columns at www.hcn.org/laureli/.
We also received word that the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, a nonprofit group of journalism educators, chose HCN as the recipient of its Outstanding Magazine of the Year award. The group’s mission, in part, is to promote the highest possible standards of journalism, and we are truly honored.
Goodbye again, Tammy!
A fond farewell to Tammy York, who has been a stalwart member of HCN’s customer service team, on and off, for 14 years. (She left us once in 2017, but kindly came back for more.)
Tammy was often the warm voice on the other end of the line when readers called with questions about subscriptions or wondering how best to make a donation. She says she always enjoyed the conversation and will forever be a believer in Tom Bell’s vision of a magazine that tells the stories of the landscapes and communities of the West.
Thanks for your wonderful work, Tammy. We’ll miss you. And remember: Our doors are always open.
Remarkable readers
Longtime readers may recall that for decades, “direct mail” (aka junk mail) was HCN’s primary method for finding new subscribers. We mailed out hundreds of thousands of discounted subscription offers every year, picking up a few thousand new subscribers each time.
At best, it was a recipe for slow growth. (Most of those new folks didn’t renew once their subscriptions came due and the price increased.) At worst, it was expensive and inefficient for us and taxing for the environment, not to mention for people’s mailboxes.
So, in 2020, we quit using direct mail. Our new website, which launched this February, will ultimately serve as our principal tool for drawing in new readers and subscribers. It’s going to take time, however, to have a measurable impact, and we don’t expect to see significant growth until 2025.
In the meantime, since we’re no longer adding new subscribers each year with direct mail, we’re seeing a lull in our circulation. When you consider that, historically, one-third of our subscribers have also made donations to support HCN’s journalism, that’s a big deal — and not in a good way.
By early June, we were well behind in the donations that comprise such an important financial base for HCN. We responded by tightening our belts and finding areas where we could save money, and we sent out an email to readers asking for help.
Boy, did you deliver. With the help of a matching gift from our dear friend Richard Pritzlaff of Boulder, Colorado, we raised more than $30,000 in two days, and at this writing, we continue to make progress toward closing the funding gap.
Tremendous gratitude to all who have given. This reader-supported nonprofit would not exist without your support.
And remember, there are other ways that you can contribute — giving gift subscriptions and free gift trials, passing along your copy of the magazine when you’re finished with it, and suggesting community and conservation organizations that we can partner with to put HCN in the hands of more people who care about the West.
As always, feel free to reach out with questions and suggestions at dearfriends@hcn.org.
This article appeared in the July 2024 print edition of the magazine with the headline “A foodie award for HCN.”
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