Karen grew up in Coeur d'Alene, in the Northern Idaho panhandle. Since childhood, she has always felt most at home in the outdoors.
After finishing high school, Karen studied journalism and wildlife biology at the University of Montana. She missed her Idaho home, though, and graduated with a B.S. in Wildlife Resources from the University of Idaho.
During her college years, Karen went somewhere new every summer. She worked in a variety of field research jobs for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game as well as the National Park Service.
Karen’s love of the outdoors and serving others brought her to the Flying B Ranch in 2006. She began managing our lodge and guest services in 2007 and continued doing so until she started a family in 2012. Over the years she has worked in nearly every area of the ranch including working in the backcountry and in HR and bookkeeping. She now works from home as our Marketing Manager, and helps out wherever she is needed. You may see her at a convention, driving a shuttle, or helping in the office. An avid hunter herself, Karen has been very actively involved with jump starting our Annual Ladies of Upland hunts and all efforts to welcome women into both big game and bird hunting. She was recently featured on the Orvis Hunting and Fishing Podcast with Reid Bryant, and in the 40th Anniversary Fall issue of Sporting Classics in a wingshooting photo essay at FBR by Ron Spomer, and highlighted by Orvis as a female professional in the hunting outfitting industry for International Women's Day 2023.
Karen feels very blessed to call the Middle Fork of the Clearwater River her home. She spends her time with her family doing everything that being a mother entails such as helping in her daughters' classrooms, being a 4H leader, and a volunteer coach for the girls' youth basketball and softball teams. She is an avid rifle and bow hunter as well as enjoying fishing, rafting, and gardening. Karen also received her Idaho EMS license in 2022 and is a volunteer for the Lowell QRU Ambulance. This rural, non-profit volunteer ambulance unit is the rural EMS service for all of our hunting areas up the Lochsa and Selway Rivers.
Karen and her family enjoy living on their farm, which is home to 4 working GSP's, a Jagdterrier, and one old retired Walker hound. Her girls enjoy riding their horses, as well as raising goats, pigs, and rabbits. Karen is an AKC registered breeder for German Shorthaired Pointers and has whelped 2 litters at home. If you wingshoot with us, you are likely to hunt with one of the puppies she whelped: Fin, Fannie, Sugar, & DD. Karen now enjoys watching her own daughters as they grow in the outdoors, taking to hunting and fishing themselves, harvesting whitetails, bear, turkey, salmon, and steelhead of their own.