Artemis Co-Founders are dedicated sportswomen and conservationists from across the west. Their passion defined our wild spirit and conservation ethos. Their hard work, energy, commitment, and intelligence drove Artemis through its first year of existence and set us on a path to success.
Kathy Hadley
Kathy is a lifelong hunter and fly fishing angler. She is the mother of two sons and lives on a ranch in western Montana with her husband Wayne. She has been a volunteer and board member of the Montana Wildlife Federation for many years and is also the Chair of the National Wildlife Federation Board of Directors. She has a great job as the ED of a national nonprofit (National Center for Appropriate Technology) in Butte, MT that works with people and organizations interested in clean energy and sustainable agriculture practices and systems. Kathy has a BS and MS in Biology from the State University College at Buffalo, NY.
Jessi Johnson
Jessi grew up ranching in Montana, Northern California and Wyoming. Her childhood instilled in her wanderlust for wide expanses of public land, and a deep appreciation for the wildlife that inhabit it. Since moving back to Wyoming 7 years ago she has spent most of her free time archery hunting and exploring the wild mountains of Wyoming. Jessi works for the Wyoming Wildlife Federation, and has volunteered for the Muley Fanatic Foundation and Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. Artemis proved a perfect fit for her ideals and ethics of hunting. She feels that Artemis’ focus on breaking the stereotypes that limit open dialogue around hunting and angling is a much needed direction in conservation. She was excited to start this group with a bold and trail blazing attitude and looks forward to building a more inclusive voice in conservation. Jessi was the Artemis Program Coordinator for its inception year.
Christine Gonzales
Christine is a native New Mexican and retired from state government after working primarily as a systems analyst. While working at the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, she became interested in hunting and fishing. She hunts with rifles, muzzleloaders, shotguns and, more recently, bow and arrow. Christine has been a firearms hunter education instructor since 2006 and a bow hunter education instructor since 2014. She is an at-large board member of the Trout Unlimited Truchas Chapter, and a certified National Archery in the Schools program instructor Christine earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and computer science from New Mexico Highlands University.
Tammy Bashore
Tammy Bashore lives on the plains of South Dakota. She is the proud wife of a professional walleye angler and mother to 2 sweet kids plus 1 fur baby (a GSP named Bentley).
While her dad was an outdoorsman, mainly hunting snow geese and pheasant, she didn’t grow up going out with him. Tammy did, however, grow up going out on the river in his boat with him every chance he would let me, which quickly began my love with spending time outdoors. She loves doing anything that involves being outside during any season of the year; hunting, fishing, kayaking, snowboarding, hiking, scouting, shed hunting, camping, and photography. Living in South Dakota, you have to learn to embrace all 4 seasons and the climate that comes with them!
In 2013, Tammy met a woman who introduced her to hunting by taking her along on a spring turkey hunt in central South Dakota. From there, she was hooked. She initially started hunting with a gun but in 2015 purchased her first bow and fell in love. She and her husbanc are purely public land hunters and spend their time mostly chasing whitetail, muley, antelope, turkey, and pheasant from late fall through spring. Summer months (and through the fall) are spent on the water catching walleye.
Tammy is passionate about conservation to protect this sporting paradise she feels so fortunate to call home. It is important to her that her family knows where their food comes from and has compassion for the life that was given in order for us to sustain this healthy life. Studies show that humans were meant to have a connection to nature. Tammy works hard to pass on this outdoor lifestyle to their children by teaching them not only how to hunt and fish, but the process that happens after the perfectly placed shot and creating wild game recipes. Without conservation and public land, our field to plate lifestyle, and ultimate relationship with nature, would struggle to exist.
Tammy’s interest in Artemis stems from the research that shows how conservation thrives when women are involved. Women have a unique perspective that often goes unheard. Being a part of Artemis gives her the confidence and strength to be fearless in speaking up for issues that threaten our outdoor heritage.
Allie D’Andrea
Growing up in Pittsburgh, Allie never fully grasped what public lands were, or why they were important. She grew up very much in the outdoors, but did not start hunting until the age of 19. Shortly after finding her passion for the hunt, she landed and internship with a hunting apparel company, First Lite, then packed up and moved to Idaho. Hunting and angling in the west is where Allie learned the importance of public lands and grew to love them deeper than anything else she’d ever experienced. She is passionate about conserving these lands for current and future generations to come.
Alexis Bonogofsky
Alexis is a fourth-generation Montanan, hunter, community organizer, goat and sheep rancher, writer and photographer who lives and works along the Yellowstone River in southeastern Montana.
She grew up hunting and fishing with her parents in the prairies and mountains of Montana. Before she ever took her first animal, her father taught her how to butcher all the different game animals that he and her mom would bring home.
For ten years as the manager of the Tribal Lands Partnership Program for the National Wildlife Federation, she fought coal development in southeastern Montana, including the Otter Creek Valley, where billions of tons of coal remain in the ground and where coal companies were aggressively pursuing the development of new coal mines. To fight against environmental destruction and create alternative energy solutions, she built coalitions between indigenous groups, ranchers and hunters and anglers.
Her family ranch was impacted by the 2011 Exxon oil spill along the Yellowstone River and she organized other Yellowstone River landowners to take on Exxon and demand proper remediation of the land. She writes about hunting, ranching, energy and politics on the blog East of Billings.
Her organizing work was featured in the book and movie, This Changes Everything, by Canadian journalist and author Naomi Klein. In 2014, Alexis was awarded the Cultural Freedom Fellowship from the Lannan Foundation in Santa Fe. She is also on the board of the directors of the national pipeline safety organization, the Pipeline Safety Trust and the Montana Environmental Information Center.
During her fellowship, she is conducting citizenship trainings in Montana, writing a book about organizing and is a freelance photographer for numerous conservation organizations around the country.
Maggie Heumann
Maggie was born and raised in the Appalachian foothills of North Alabama and was drawn to the outdoors from as far back as she can remember. She grew up on a farm, where she had hundreds of acres to freely roam, and it was there she discovered her passion for insects and the natural world. At the age of 8, her father told her that if she truly loved insects, that she needed to learn to fly fish. They drove out West that summer, stopping at Cabela’s in Nebraska, where she got my first fly rod. Maggie has been “hooked” on fly fishing ever since.
Upon graduation from Auburn University, Maggie followed her heart West by way of Fort Collins, Colorado, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming, ultimately landing in Victor, Idaho. In Victor, all aspects of the outdoors continue to be a part of her everyday life, whether it be fishing, hunting, skiing or hiking. Since moving West, her appreciation for, and access to, public lands has increased exponentially. She honestly did not realize how much land she actually owns! An Open Space Management class in grad school greatly increased her awareness of what was, literally, out her back door.
Maggie’s husband is a Navy Veteran and fly-fishing guide in Idaho, and she is the buyer for a local outdoor store in Jackson Hole. Their lives are completely entwined with conservation and public land use.
Maggie is honored and thrilled to be a part of Artemis and to help empower other sportswomen to gain a platform and take a stand on conservation issues. Preserving public lands and their resident species is a consuming passion of hers, not only for her sake, but for the benefit of future generations.
Sara Domek
Sara grew up in the high sagebrush sea of western Wyoming. While a love for horses was a primary obsession for much of her childhood, Sara loved following in her father’s footsteps fishing and hunting on Wyoming’s public lands. Sara’s family spends a lot of time outside, and from her experiences working on Forest Service trail crews to her current role as the Executive Director of the National Bighorn Sheep Center, Sara is professionally and personally deeply dedicated to wildlife, public lands and the outdoors. She loves to hunt, and her passion for archery hunting grew exponentially this past season with an exhilarating full-draw encounter with a bull. Sara is passionate about helping to empower more women’s voices in public lands and wildlife conservation, and being part of the bold team of women who make up Artemis.
Kara Armano
Kara is a lifelong passionate outdoorswoman with most of that passion being dedicated to fly fishing. She was taught to love and respect the outdoors by her great grandmother and continues to magnify that love to other anglers and women, especially. Kara believes that we must do everything in our power to encourage women to get involved on the local, state and national level to preserve our resources for sportswomen of future generations. Kara knows we cannot make a difference if we do not have a voice, and women’s voices can be especially strong. Artemis embodies this perfectly and she’s looking forward to the swell of women speaking out for conservation and sportswoman issues across the country.