Heather Lara has been a freelance journalist since September 2007. She enjoys hiking, biking and reading. She’s a small-town girl at heart but enjoys the luxuries of the city. She moved back to Reno from Kansas a couple years ago but spent most of her life in the Reno area. She loves economics and international relations and will be graduating from the University of Nevada, Reno in May.

Joyce Hollister has traveled the Silver State more in the last seven years with Nevada Magazine than in all the years since she arrived in Genoa in 1962. She loves visiting the rural areas with her husband, Gim, and grandkids, checking out ghost towns and historic sites. A writer and editor with the Record-Courier in Gardnerville for 25 years, Hollister was named to the Nevada Newspaper Hall of Fame in 2003. She is the former publisher, editor, and associate editor of Nevada Magazine, and says blogging is like writing letters to old friends.

When Charlie is not hitching across the Australian Outback, cheating death in Guatemala, climbing a Cascade volcano, or training for a marathon, he’s the Associate Editor for Nevada Magazine. The Nevada native is a 2006 graduate of the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno, and has worked for the magazine since December 2007. His childhood of exploring practically every dirt road in rural Nevada with his father and brother proved ample preparation for his Traveling Nevada blog.

Ryan Jerz has been with the Nevada Commission on Tourism since July, 2007. He comes straight from graduate school where he studied interactive journalism and earned his Master’s degree from the University of Nevada, Reno. He has been blogging for over six years and loves to write about Nevada, which makes Traveling Nevada the perfect fit for him. His background in television and as a freelance photographer gives him the flexibility to get some good photos and put together videos that show the rest of the world why he thinks Nevada is the greatest place on the planet.

If Brown is not enjoying the outdoors via bike, foot, or snowboard, there’s a good chance he’s casting his line in the river or watching a 49ers, S.F. Giants, or Warriors game—depending on the season. A graduate of Northern California’s Middletown High School and California State University, Chico, Brown has served as sports and outdoors editor at the Sierra Sun in Truckee and as a sports reporter and copy editor at the Reno Gazette-Journal. A native South Dakotan, proud Reno resident, and even prouder husband, Brown has worked at Nevada Magazine since August 2006.