Our Talented Board Members
While FOAL initially challenged local college students to develop a logo, it eventually adopted a design from one of FOAL’s gifted Board members.
FOAL initially hired a local firm to assist in the development of a web-site, but has since been blessed to have a very talented board member take on the task of creating and maintaining the current web-site.
Two current Board members have been certified by the Science and Conservation Center of Billings, Montana to field dart mares in the use of PZP as a means of managing the horse population in the McCullough Peaks.
Marion Morrison - Executive Director
Marion Morrison has lived in the Big Horn Basin since the early 1980’s other than an interval of living in Laramie, Wyoming to obtain her masters and then following engineering projects in the southern states. “When I was a kid, my parents told my horse- crazy older sisters to take me with them when they went riding. I had no choice but to learn how to ride as they only walked the horses till they were out of site of the barn!” Horses have been a part of her life since. Morrison says “Living in a world that respects and values the legacy of wildness is critical to true quality of human life. Wild horses are just one part of that.” When she’s not fulfilling her duties as FOAL’s executive director, she’s likely to be found in Wyoming’s wild spaces camping, expressing her interest in photography, or flyfishing.
Mary Scuffham - President
Mary was born and raised on a farm in Northwestern Illinois. She has had a love of horses since she could talk and asked for a horse many times. She graduated from a diploma nursing program and worked as an RN for 43 years. Mary and her husband Harold have four grown children and eleven grandchildren. Her love of horses has continued throughout her life, having owned horses twice, and spending many hours riding at a friend’s home; going to all kinds of horse shows; visiting the west when possible and hosting a therapeutic riding program at their home for a few years. That program outgrew their arena and when Harold and Mary found themselves mowing their five acres many times a month with no livestock to assist them, they decided to move. Having vacationed to the Cody area on numerous occasions, they decided to move to Cody. Both Harold and Mary had been involved in community activities in Illinois. Harold was with the Lions Club and local food pantry while Mary was with the Sinnissippi Foundation Board and the White Oaks Therapeutic Equestrian Center Board. After attending Jay Kirkpatrick’s presentation on PZP in November of 2015, they started volunteering for Friends of a Legacy in 2016. Mary joined the FOAL board in early 2017.
Frances Clymer - Vice President
Frances B. Clymer is the director of the Park County Library System. Her background includes twenty years at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody (now the Buffalo Bill Center of the West) where she was employed in the curatorial division as a researcher and curatorial assistant for ten years, followed by ten years as assistant librarian in the McCracken Research Library. During her time at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Frances was involved in the production of the catalog for its 1999 exhibit Unbroken Spirit: the Wild Horse in the American Landscape. Frances earned a B.A. in French Language and Literature at the University of Kansas, an M.A. in Medieval Studies at the University of Poitiers in Poitiers, France, and an M.L.I.S. in library administration from the School of Library and Information Management at Emporia State University.
John McGee - Treasurer
John McGee is a third generation Wyomingite and has lived in Cody his entire life. He was a general contractor for over 35 years and has been married to the same wonderful lady for almost 40 years. John and Maryann have two grown children who both live in Bozeman, Montana. He has been around horses since a very young age since his father and grandfather both shared their passion for horses with him. John says he is “interested in helping to preserve both the wild horses of the area and the environment in which they live. I think it is important to somehow manipulate the wild horse population and keep as few as possible in a confined situation.”
Buzzy Hassrick - Secretary
Buzzy Hassrick has lived in Cody, on and off, since 1976 and has worked in the news departments of KODI and the Cody Enterprise, continuing now as an occasional writer for the newspaper. She joined the FOAL board in 2012 and will serve as secretary in 2015. As an avid hiker, she has explored the McCullough Peaks and finds them an enchanting, fragile landscape where all wildlife, including wild horses, fill important ecological niches. The efforts of FOAL, as an advocate for the mustangs, benefit the fauna as well as the flora of the Peaks.
Michaele Dimock - Board Member
Growing up as a horse-crazy kid, Michaele is still living her dream decades later, surrounded by horses. She shares this passion with her husband Chris and together they stay busy caring for their Cody ranch and running their newest company - It's Elation Inc. which helps organizations change the way individuals live and work by empowering them to take control of their mindset. Michaele is a certified "Reach Out to Horses" trainer under international equine specialist Anna Twinney. She has fostered many mustangs from the BLM and hosted six "Untouched Horse" clinics, where students from all over the U.S., Europe, Asia and Africa came to learn the art of gentling wild horses - which ultimately made it easier for them to be adopted. Michaele currently has nineteen adopted mustangs, seven from the McCullough Peaks and the rest from the Pryor Mountains, Adobe Town, Fifteen Mile, Divide Basin and Green Mountain HMA's.
Marshall Dominick - Board Member
You may recognize this name and face from his previous service to FOAL. We are glad to welcome Marshall Dominick back to the board. Northwest Wyoming has been Marshall’s home for all but a handful of his 74 years, making Marshall as close to being a Wyoming native as one can get without being born here. Marshall, his wife, Bettye Dominick, Ada Inbody and Ken Martin were founding members of FOAL in 2005. He continued to serve on the board for ten years. He took a brief hiatus from service in 2015 to recharge, returning with a “burning desire to do whatever I can to improve the conditions for the wild horses.” He says he “enjoys working with the members of this dynamic board.” Welcome back, Marshall!
Vicki Mann Olson - Board Member
Vicki Mann Olson says she “impulsively” adopted a two-year-old mustang stallion from McCullough Peaks on her birthday about 14 years ago. Tate blended in well with her other horses and is still doing fine. Nine years ago she inherited/rescued a herd of over 70 Paso Finos, 30 of which she continues to care for and train as she works to find them loving homes. Vicki’s great grandparents homesteaded in Powell, Wyoming, where she and her husband, Bruce, raised their 6 children. She is a retired adjunct Northwest College (NWC) faculty member, has a degree in Photographic Communications from NWC, and is currently finishing up a degree in equine training from NWC. She is a partner in Open Range Images photo gallery in Cody, works part-time for Skywest Airlines at Yellowstone Regional Airport, enjoys volunteering in her community and photo excursions around Wyoming.
David Beckett - Board Member
David Beckett has over 25 years of legal experience – 15 years in private practice and 10 years as general counsel of both public and private companies. In addition, David has 10 years of investment banking/finance experience. “I grew up in Fort Myers, Florida – then just a small town in southwest Florida – in a house next to my grandparents. While my father ran one of the businesses established by my grandfather, my grandfather had the time to instill in me the love of the outdoors and a passion for sports. He introduced me to the game of golf when I was 10 years old, and I continued to play golf competitively through college. In 2009, I moved to Cody to be with my wife, Laura Bell, three Australian Shepherds, and five horses. I embrace the notion of life-long learning and reading, birding, growing hay, and riding horses.
Hap Ridgway - Board Member
Hap Ridgway was born and raised in Cody. He graduated from Cody High School and went on to Dartmouth College, followed by a two-year tour in the Army before completing a Masters in International Affairs at Columbia University. His parents purchased a homestead in Sunlight Valley and in 1957 started Elk Creek Ranch, a ranch and wilderness program for teenagers. Hap started out as the "kitchen boy" and worked his way up to manage the operation in the 1970's. He paired his summer ranch work with a career in schools--teaching, serving as the assistant headmaster at Kimball Union Academy in New Hampshire, and finishing his career as the headmaster of Berwick Academy in Maine. His spouse Susan was equally passionate about ranch and school life and about working with teenagers. They ran Elk Creek together for two decades and then supported their nieces and later their four children as they took over the reins at the ranch handling the ranch correspondence and accounting and feeding horses during the winter. Hap now continues at the ranch enjoying the work with teenagers in the summer and the mountain country of Northwest Wyoming.
Jack Machen - Board Member
Jack Machen was welcomed as our tenth board member. Jack served previously on the board and has continued his involvement by serving as an advisor. A native of Baltimore, Jack has been a lifelong visitor to the Cody area since 1968 when he worked on the 7D Ranch at the age of sixteen. In 2000, Jack and his wife, Louise, purchased land in Cody and spent vacations in their seasonal yurt before moving into their newly constructed house in 2019. Jack was a commercial real estate attorney for the global law firm DLA Piper before retiring in 2012. He now works remotely as Special Chief Solicitor with the Baltimore City Law Department while he and Louise deepen their roots in Wyoming. Welcome to the board, Jack! Good to have you back!
Cindy Bennett - Advisory Board
Visual artist Cindy Bennett returned to Cody after working for many years in the Los Angeles art scene where she developed North Hill Exhibitions in Chinatown – a fine art gallery and community based arts resource, was Vice President of United Nations Association, Pasadena, President of SITE – a non-profit arts organization, and Program Creator/Fine Art Facilitator for HIV LA. She earned a BA in English from The Colorado College, BFA from University of Colorado, and MFA from Maryland Institute of Art, Mount Royal. Cindy exhibits her artwork locally at the West Park Hospital, internationally, and throughout the US.
Warren Murphy - Advisory Board
Warren Murphy is the President of Friends of a Legacy (FOAL), the wild horse advocacy organization for the Cody area wild horses. Warren is an Episcopal clergyman who has served in Wyoming for over 36 years. He has been a strong advocate for the protection of wild horses and all other wildlife found in the Rocky Mountain West. He is a former board member of the Great Yellowstone Coalition and he presently serves as Environmental Projects Director for the Wyoming Association of Churches. In this capacity he is coordinating a coalition of organizations and supporters who wish to see a federally designated National Conservation Area in Wyoming's Red Desert. This is an area of unique landscapes, Anglo and Native American historical sites and dessert wildlife including several wild horse herds. He is author of the recently published book, On Sacred Ground: A Religious and Spiritual History of Wyoming.