DonIanSmith

High Country Books

About the Author

Heidi Smith

Born in Salmon, Idaho in 1955, Heidi Smith is the daughter of our first featured author, Rev. Don Ian Smith. She spent her early childhood on the family ranch near Salmon, moving with her parents to Boise at the age of 13, where she graduated from Capital High School as valedictorian of her class. She published her first article during her senior year in high school. She completed a double Bachelors degree at the University of Idaho in Animal Science and Veterinary Science, going on to earn her DVM from Washington State University in 1981. She practiced veterinary medicine for 19 years prior to moving back to the Salmon area and shifting careers into the ministry. She has published numerous articles on equine, veterinary and theological topics, but has just made her debut into writing books in 2011 with her first biblically-based juvenile novel, THIRTY PIECES OF GOLD. She has several additional manuscripts pending--some additional juvenile novels as well as a meditation series similar to those her father has written.
Smith is currently a distance student at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary, where she is on track to complete her Masters of Divinity degree in May of 2012. She is a member of the pioneer cohort of distance MDiv students at UDTS--the first PC(USA) seminary to offer a distance MDiv degree. She continues to pastor the Salmon First Presbyterian Church where she has served since January of 2005, first as pulpit supply and then as a Commissioned Lay Pastor. After moving back to the Salmon area, Smith also worked as an occupational therapy paraprofessional working with special needs children for the Salmon School District, as well as substitute teaching in local schools.
Smith is an avid endurance rider, and has been since the early 1970s; in fact, she introduced her father to the sport. Father and daughter are shown here completing the Little Freezeout Endurance Ride in southwestern Idaho in 1979, crossing the finish line in a tie, hand in hand. She continues to compete in the sport, when her academic work and pastoral schedule permit. She has also served several terms as both regional director and director-at-large as well as a term as chairman of the Veterinary Committee of the American Endurance Ride Conference and is a past president, past director and past junior rider advisor to the Pacific Northwest Endurance Riders. She has also mentored and sponsored a junior endurance rider from her church.
Smith, like her father, still cherishes her roots in ranching, and continues to raise Arabian horses on her small ranchette near Tendoy, Idaho, about 12 miles from where she spent her childhood on her parents' Sky Range Ranch. Like her father, she finds that she gets much of her inspiration for preaching and ministry from working the land, working with God's creatures, and living close to the natural beauty of creation. She credits her daily commute down the Lemhi River between the snow-capped peaks of the Lemhi Mountains and the Beaverhead Range of the Continental Divide with being one of her best daily times of meditation and inspiration. In addition to her horses, she shares her place with deer, elk, moose, antelope, coyotes, foxes, owls, hawks, eagles, and other wildlife.

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