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A typical day for Mike McKenna, executive director of The Chamber of Hailey and the Wood River Valley, is anything but typical. You could meet him up and down the Valley, anywhere from the cheery red Visitor Information and Welcome Center at the gateway to Hailey, to ribbon cuttings, Business After Hours gatherings, visiting with local business owners, and at special events from the Thanksgiving Turkey Trot to the blowout Fourth of July festivities. McKenna, literally, is everywhere.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely never boring,\u201d Mike said. \u201cMy favorite part of the job is that we are different things to different people. We strive to assist everyone, from first-time visitors to the area from all over the region and the country, to local businesses, to lifelong residents. We help market businesses, showcasing what makes this whole Valley unique and amazing, as well as our one-of-a-kind community. We want to enhance, highlight, and celebrate our amazing quality of life.\u201d<\/p>\n
A typical atypical day involves \u201cmeetings, meetings, meetings,\u201d Mike laughed, \u201cwith everyone from small business owners to political leaders, community leaders, and everyone in between.\u201d It also involves picking up the phone, responding to emails, and chatting with people who pop into the Welcome Center with wide-ranging questions and requests. Need a recommendation of the right place for your family to stay while in town? Mike and his two colleagues have lots of ideas. Interested in learning how to Nordic ski? They will point you in the right direction. In town for a hockey tournament at Hailey Ice and need a place to feed the team? No problem. Have questions about a great spot for a birthday party or a wedding to remember? They\u2019ve got you covered.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose are the more common types of questions,\u201d Mike explained. \u201cThen there are the others. We\u2019ve gotten phone calls asking for help in tracking down long-lost friends or wondering why a street hasn\u2019t been plowed yet. Like I said, it\u2019s never boring!\u201d<\/p>\n
Mike, a Boston native, fell in love with the Wood River Valley as a young man after college, but the area caught his eye years before that. He explained, \u201cWhen I was a kid, The Wide World of Sport<\/i>s was on one Saturday and they were covering the Nationals for skiing on Baldy. I remember stopping in my parents\u2019 living room and thinking, \u2018That\u2019s the most beautiful place I\u2019ve ever seen in my life.\u2019 Years later, after college, I drove through, but it wasn\u2019t until I was living in Seattle that my friend proclaimed that he was \u2018done with the rain\u2019 and we moved here. My first job was working on a tree farm, landscaping.\u201d<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t know it at the time, but Mike had roots in the Wood River Valley.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cIt turns out I have a great-uncle who was the first captain of the Idaho National Guard,\u201d Mike said. And his roots deepened quickly when he fell in love with Brooke, a Wood River Valley native, at the Pioneer Saloon over cocktails and artichokes. Now, the two are raising fifth-generation Idahoans, sons Jack, 11, and Sam, 9.<\/p>\n Raising his children in Hailey is one of Mike\u2019s great joys. He coaches Sam, a Squirt hockey player, cheers on Jack, a Peewee hockey player, and also coaches Jack in Travel All-Star Baseball Little League. A writer at heart and by trade, Mike also finds the time to keep up with several columns and is an award-winning journalist and author. Down time is spent pursuing his passion for fishing and anything that can be ridden on two wheels.<\/p>\n Five questions for Mike:<\/p>\n WRW: What are you reading?<\/b><\/p>\n MM<\/b>: Don Quixote<\/span>. I\u2019ve actually never read it and it\u2019s great. The book I read before was by Christopher Moore, one of my favorite authors. I highly recommend him\u2014very funny.<\/p>\n WRW: Any memorable date-night spots with Brooke?<\/b><\/p>\n MM:<\/b> We recently had two really nice evenings out, one a dinner at Ketchum Grill and one dinner at the Limelight Hotel before an event at The Argyros.<\/p>\n WRW: What\u2019s your favorite family fun spot?<\/b><\/p>\n MM<\/b>: The boys love Lefty\u2019s and it\u2019s always nice to enjoy the deck and live music at The Wicked Spud in the summer.<\/p>\n WRW: Is it true that you\u2019re something of a fishing aficionado? <\/b><\/p>\n MM: <\/b>I\u2019ve written two books on fishing, including Angling Around Sun Valle<\/span>y (editor\u2019s note: named the Best Book of the Year by the Northwest Outdoor Writers Association). <\/span> I love to fish, whether it\u2019s on the Big Wood, hiking up to Norton Lake, or on any of our world-class area waters.<\/p>\n WRW: What\u2019s your perfect day in the Wood River Valley?<\/b><\/p>\n MM:\u00a0 <\/span><\/b>I\u2019m a warm-weather guy, so my perfect summer day would start with sleeping in and getting a great cup of coffee and some treats with my family at Hailey Coffee Company. Fishing would definitely be on the agenda next, followed by lunch outside. We have so many great al-fresco dining options, I\u2019d have to see what kind of mood I was in before choosing. Getting a bike ride in would be the highlight of the afternoon, followed by a nice dinner and finding a great spot on the lawn to enjoy the Sun Valley Summer Symphony. Since it doesn\u2019t get dark until after 10 p.m., I think I\u2019d finish out the day sitting on my front porch with Brooke having a beer or a glass of Prosecco and watching the sun set. That would be pretty perfect.<\/p>\n Next time you see Mike lining people up for a parade, starting the Turkey Trot, greeting visitors at the Welcome Center, or making the rounds up and down the Valley, be sure to say hello and ask him pretty much anything.<\/p>\n \u201cWe really do believe there are no crazy or stupid questions. Just try us!\u201d said McKenna with a laugh.<\/p>\n Find out more about The Chamber at valleychamber.org or call (208) 788-3494.<\/p>\n This is the first in a new weekly feature in the WRW. If you would like to recommend someone that the community should get to know better, please email us at XXX@XXXXXX with the subject line Someone to Meet. <\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A typical day for Mike McKenna, executive director of The Chamber of Hailey and the Wood River Valley, is anything but typical. You could meet him up and down the Valley, anywhere from the cheery red Visitor Information and Welcome Center at the gateway to Hailey, to ribbon cuttings, Business After Hours gatherings, visiting with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12621,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,23,36],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12619","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-commentary","8":"category-people-that-you-meet","9":"category-slider"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}