The Valley Edit

The Valley Edit Celebrating the people, places, and stories of the LC Valley.

There are a lot of different ways to build a career.For Dusty Bly, it was about building one that could grow alongside h...
08/27/2026

There are a lot of different ways to build a career.

For Dusty Bly, it was about building one that could grow alongside her family.

Dusty is a wife, a mom of two, the owner of 5R Photography, and one of the many people quietly giving their time to the LC Ice Arena.

But photography wasn't actually the first business she started. It was jewelry. While running her jewelry business, Dusty found herself really enjoying one part of it: taking pictures of what she created.

Photography wasn't completely new to her. Her dad was a rodeo photographer, so she had grown up watching him behind the camera. But the more pictures Dusty took herself, the more she realized how much she loved it.

In 2012, that interest became a business of its own when Dusty started her photography business. Her skills are mostly self-taught. She learned as she went, kept practicing, and slowly turned something she enjoyed into something she could actually build a career around.

Then, in 2015, she became a mom. And suddenly, the business meant something a little different.

Dusty wanted to work. She wanted to have something of her own. But she also wanted to be home with her son. It's a decision so many parents understand. How do you keep building a career while also being the parent you want to be? For Dusty, the answer was to take a leap of faith.

She went full-time with her photography business and created a schedule that could revolve around her family instead of asking her family to revolve around her work. When her daughter came along in 2020, that flexibility mattered even more.

Today, Dusty doesn't really put herself into one photography niche. She loves capturing special moments for people. Families. Weddings. Milestones. The little pieces of life people want to remember.

She built her career around being there for her own family's moments while spending her days capturing those moments for everyone else. As her kids have gotten older, being present has started to look a little different.

These days, a lot of it happens at the ice rink. Dusty's son plays hockey at the LC Ice Arena, and somewhere along the way, she became much more than a mom sitting in the stands.

Today, Dusty started as the hockey board as the Director of Fundraising and is now the Social Media and Marketing Board, giving her time to help support a place that has become an important part of her family's life. If you've ever wondered what keeps a place like the LC Ice Arena going, a big part of the answer is people—the volunteers.

Parents and community members who have jobs, families and busy lives of their own but still find time to show up.

The board is made up of volunteers, and so much of what happens behind the scenes depends on people willing to give their time. From fundraising and programs to maintaining the rink and helping make sure kids have a place to play, countless hours happen that most of us never see.

Today, families walk through those doors for hockey, figure skating and other programs because the volunteers kept showing up. Now Dusty is one of them. During hockey season, that can mean practices, games, tournaments, fundraising, and plenty of hours spent at the rink.

Then there is the photography business.Two kids. A marriage to the person she's been with since she was 15 years old. And all the regular stuff that comes with raising a family. It's a lot.

I think that's exactly why Dusty's story feels so relatable. We talk a lot about "balance," especially when it comes to working parents. Sometimes balance isn't really what it looks like. Sometimes it feels like we're being asked to choose. A career or more time with our kids.

Building something for ourselves or being there for the people who need us. Dusty is such a great example that it doesn't always have to be one or the other.

She took something she loved, took a chance on herself and built a business that allowed her to keep working while raising her family. As her kids have grown, she's continued to shift right along with them.

Being present once meant building a career that allowed her to stay home with her kids. Now it also looks like sitting in a cold ice rink, raising money, volunteering her time and helping create opportunities for other kids in our community.

That's what makes Dusty a bit of a trailblazer. Not because she has everything perfectly balanced. But because she found her own way to make it happen.

For herself. For her career. For her community. And most importantly, for her family.

I have a feeling there are a whole lot of parents out there who can relate to that. Sometimes making a shift happen isn't about choosing one life over another.

Sometimes it's about having the courage to create your own.

Everyone has a story. Every place has a story. Every business has a story. I want to help tell them.The Valley Edit is a...
08/19/2026

Everyone has a story. Every place has a story. Every business has a story. I want to help tell them.

The Valley Edit is about finding the people, places and stories that make our community what it is.

Send me your nominations. 💛

Hospice Isn’t Giving Up. It’s Showing Up.There are some words we don't like to say out loud.Hospice is one of them.It ca...
08/18/2026

Hospice Isn’t Giving Up. It’s Showing Up.

There are some words we don't like to say out loud.

Hospice is one of them.

It can feel heavy. Final. For a lot of families, hearing the word hospice feels like being told it's time to give up.

When I sat down with Amanda and Beth from Ascend Hospice of Idaho, I’ll admit, even I felt the weight of that word. But the longer we talked, the more I realized hospice looked a lot different than I had pictured it.

Inside a small, locally owned hospice in Lewiston, there is a group of people hoping to change the way we think about that word.

To them, hospice isn't about giving up on someone. It's about showing up for them.

Ascend Hospice of Idaho was created with a simple idea: hospice care could feel smaller, more personal and more like family.

Owner J.R. Burt wanted the flexibility to care for people differently. He saw a need for something local, a place where decisions could be made by people who actually live in the community they're serving.

In a way, Ascend was a family before it ever became a business. Several members of the team had already worked alongside one another for years. They knew each other's hearts. They knew how the others cared for people.

So when they came together at Ascend, they weren't just building a staff. They were building something they believed families here deserved. Because when hospice walks through your front door, life doesn't suddenly become clinical.

There are still dishes in the sink. Family pictures on the walls. A favorite chair in the living room. Grandkids coming through the door. A spouse lying awake wondering what tomorrow is going to look like.

There are people who are scared. People who are exhausted. And people desperately trying to be strong for someone they love.

That's where this team steps in.Not to take over.Not to tell a family how this chapter should look. But to walk beside them through it.

Sometimes that means managing pain or making someone more comfortable. Sometimes it's helping a family understand what is happening. Sometimes it's answering the phone when someone doesn't know what to do next. And sometimes, it's simply sitting beside someone so they don't feel alone.

The Ascend team wishes more families knew they could call sooner. Hospice doesn't have to begin in someone's final days. As they put it, the earlier, the better.

Calling doesn't mean you've made a decision. Asking questions doesn't mean you're giving up. It means you're learning what support is available, because there can still be life inside hospice care.

There can still be laughter. There can still be stories told around the bed. There can still be birthdays, favorite meals, hand-holding and quiet afternoons at home.

There can still be moments that matter. Maybe that's what gets lost when we're afraid of the word hospice. We think only about what is coming.

The people at Ascend are thinking about right now. How can we make today more comfortable? How can we help this family? How can we give them more time to simply be together?

The team knows they can't take away the heartbreak that comes with loving someone you may have to say goodbye to. But they can take away some of the fear surrounding it. They can answer questions. They can help carry some of the weight.

They can remind a tired caregiver that they don't have to know how to do all of this on their own. And long after a patient is gone, that care doesn't just disappear.

Support continues for the people left behind, including grief and bereavement resources for families learning how to navigate life after loss. That's the part of hospice I don't think we hear about enough.

Behind a word so many of us are afraid of are people whose entire job is to bring comfort into a place that feels impossible. The people at Ascend consider being invited into those moments a blessing.

They meet people during some of the hardest days of their lives. But they also get to witness something incredibly human. Families coming together. Stories being shared.
Hands being held. Love showing up when there isn't anything left to fix.

Maybe hospice isn't a story about giving up at all. Maybe it's about making sure that when a family reaches one of life's hardest chapters, they don't have to walk through it alone.

The Heart Behind Fern & Flour At 21 years old, Becca is a wife, a mom to a 10-month-old little girl, and the face behin...
08/09/2026

The Heart Behind Fern & Flour

At 21 years old, Becca is a wife, a mom to a 10-month-old little girl, and the face behind Fern & Flour.

She's creative by nature. She loves gardening, scrapbooking, DIY projects, reading and, of course, baking.

But Fern & Flour came from a much deeper place.

A few years ago, Becca's mom was battling cancer. Becca became her full-time caregiver, spending all of her time taking care of the woman who had always taken care of her.

Her mom passed away in December of 2024.

Afterward, Becca suddenly had a lot of time she didn't know what to do with. She had spent so much of her life caring for her mom, and when that was gone, she needed something to keep herself busy while navigating through her grief.

So she started baking. Baking was something Becca already loved, but it was also something she had shared with her mom growing up.

One of her favorite memories is actually a really simple one. Becca, her mom and her sister were baking together when her mom dropped an egg on the floor. They laughed so hard about it, and all these years later, it's a core memory Becca still thinks about.

As Becca continued baking, it became a way for her to work through her grief. Soon there were cookies, brownies and sourdough filling the kitchen.

Then Becca became a mom herself.

Her pregnancy was incredibly difficult, and during labor, Becca nearly lost her life. She made it through and welcomed her little girl, but becoming a mother without her own mom there was hard.

She struggled with postpartum depression and found herself grieving her mom in a whole new way.

And once again, she baked.

Eventually, Becca decided to see if this thing she loved so much could become something more.

She took her baking to the Lewiston Farmers Market. Her first one ended in success. That was the moment Becca started thinking, maybe I can actually do this.

Fern & Flour began to grow.

Even the name has a little story behind it. Fern comes from Becca's love of gardening, and Flour is a play on her last name, Fowler.

Today, she's creating everything from her popular brown butter cookies to lemon berry treats, which have become a bestseller.

I think knowing Becca's story makes you look at her little baking business differently. Fern & Flour isn't just something she decided to start one day.

It came after losing her mom. After becoming a mom herself. After a traumatic pregnancy and delivery. After postpartum depression. After trying to figure out what life looked like when so much of it had changed.

And somehow, something she once shared with her mom became part of how she started finding herself again.

Now Becca gets to make those same kinds of memories with her own daughter.

Someday, her little girl will remember standing in the kitchen next to her mom, making brownies, licking the spoon or laughing over a mess they made together.

Just like Becca does.

And maybe that's one of the most beautiful parts of her story.

Her mom isn't here to see Fern & Flour or watch Becca become the mom and business owner she is today. But you can still find pieces of her there.

Even if it's just a little flour on the counter and the memory of an egg on the floor.

Sometimes the biggest hearts come in the smallest people.When I asked The Valley Edit community to nominate someone who ...
08/04/2026

Sometimes the biggest hearts come in the smallest people.

When I asked The Valley Edit community to nominate someone who continues to show up for others despite life's challenges, I received a message from a mother.

She wasn't writing about herself. She was writing about her seven-year-old daughter, Addy.

As I read her words, I kept having to remind myself that this story was about a child. Because Addy's heart doesn't seem to understand that she's only seven.

Her mom, Kristen, is raising five children. Addy and three of her siblings are autistic, and Kristen homeschools them all. When Addy was little, she was diagnosed with both autism and ADHD. At one point, there were concerns she might struggle to recognize or express empathy.

Life had other plans.

According to her mom, Addy has become the most compassionate person she's ever known.

It all began during Vacation Bible School. Their church was raising money for an orphanage called Wonder Afrika in Uganda. The first year, the children helped buy triple bunk beds. The next year, they raised enough money for mattresses.

Most kids would have been excited simply to help.

But something about those children thousands of miles away settled into Addy's heart.

When she was six years old, she came up with an idea. Her family had ducks, and she wanted to sell their eggs so every dollar could go toward helping the children in Uganda. When the ducks stopped laying eggs for the season, she was devastated.

Trying to cheer her up, her parents counted the money she'd been saving. There was enough to buy the bicycle she'd been dreaming about. She had already picked it out. They planned to buy it that weekend. Then, just before they left, she changed her mind.

Instead of buying herself the bike, she looked at her mom and asked, "Could we do something with this money to help the kids instead?"

So they did.

They bought supplies instead of a bicycle. Addy started a tiny business called Shine 4 Afrika, making beaded pens, bracelets, bookmarks, keychains, and anything else she could create with her little hands.

Every single dollar she earned went to the children she'd never met.

Until she finally did.

Through video calls, the children in Uganda slowly became family.

Her first donation was delivered in person through her church, and from that moment on, according to her mom, she was on fire.

Not for recognition. Not because anyone asked her to. But because, as Addy simply put it, "Jesus put it in my heart."

Today, she looks for every opportunity to help someone else. She has donated her handmade creations to local causes, volunteered at nonprofit events, spent hours helping elderly members of our community with yard work, and inspired other children right here in the Valley to give back. One family even held a lemonade stand and donated the proceeds to Wonder Afrika because of Addy's example.

Her kindness became contagious.

Maybe that's what struck me most about this story.

We spend so much time wondering whether the next generation will change the world. Sometimes, they're already doing it. Sometimes they remind the rest of us what generosity actually looks like.

Thank you, Kristen, for nominating your daughter and for sharing her beautiful heart with our community.

And thank you, Addy, for reminding all of us that you don't have to be big to make a big difference.

My Story.If we're going to spend time getting to know the people of this valley, I figured it only made sense to let you...
08/02/2026

My Story.

If we're going to spend time getting to know the people of this valley, I figured it only made sense to let you get to know me first.

I'm a wife, a mom of three, and a full-time marketer born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. I've always loved this valley—not because it's perfect, but because it's home.

I've always been curious about people. Their stories, what shaped them, what keeps them going, and the moments that changed their lives.

Maybe that's because I was born into a family of writers. My grandpa is a published writer, and my aunts have always shared a love for writing. Somewhere along the way, they passed that same passion on to me.

Writing has always been the place I come back to.

Over the years, I've written for moms navigating different seasons of life because I am living those seasons too. Like so many parents, I've wrestled with career decisions, trying to build something meaningful while still being present for the moments that mattered most.

The older I get, the more I realize success isn't always about climbing the next ladder.

Sometimes it's about creating something that feels like you and success will follow.

One of my biggest inspirations has always been Humans of New York, a project built around the idea that every person has a story worth telling. It reminded me that the most meaningful stories aren't always the loudest, they're often quietly unfolding all around us.

That idea stayed with me.

It became The Valley Edit.

My hope is simple: to celebrate the people, places, businesses, history, and hidden gems that make the Lewis-Clark Valley so special.

I don't know exactly where this journey will lead.I'm not chasing perfection. I'm simply chasing the stories that deserve to be told.

I just know that something in my heart kept telling me to start.

Thank you for being here.

I hope you'll follow along, share the people and places you love, and help me tell the stories that make this valley feel like home.

— Dani

I just wanted to say thank you for all of your nominations.I've had the opportunity to meet and chat with some truly inc...
07/30/2026

I just wanted to say thank you for all of your nominations.

I've had the opportunity to meet and chat with some truly incredible people, businesses, and organizations throughout our valley. The response has honestly been overwhelming and I'm so incredibly grateful. I get a little emotional just thinking about it.

Please keep the nominations coming! I'm currently working on a website that will make submitting them even easier, but until then, feel free to send your nominations right here through Messenger.

Thank you for believing in this little dream and for helping me tell the stories that make our valley so special. 🫶

Hi, I'm Dani.Writing has always been one of my favorite ways to connect with people. I love hearing someone's story, fin...
07/14/2026

Hi, I'm Dani.

Writing has always been one of my favorite ways to connect with people. I love hearing someone's story, finding the little details that make a place special, and putting those moments into words. There's something powerful about sharing the things that often go unnoticed.

Over the years, I've been fortunate to meet so many incredible people through my work. Every conversation has reminded me that this community is full of stories worth telling, businesses worth supporting, and people who are making a difference every single day.

That's what The Valley Edit is all about.

As the publisher, my hope is to create something that feels authentic. A place where we celebrate the people, places, businesses, and moments that make the LC Valley home. Not just the big headlines, but the everyday stories that bring our community together.

We're launching in August, and I couldn't be more excited to finally share it with you.

Thank you for following along, for sharing this page, and for believing in what I am building. If there's a person, local business, hidden gem, or story you think deserves to be featured, I'd love to hear from you. Please send me your nominations. Some of the very best stories come from the people who call this valley home, and I can't wait to tell them together. 🫶

06/10/2026

The Valley Edit.

Local stories. Local people. Local places.

Launching soon.

Want to be featured? Message us.

Hi, local friends,I've been creating something that celebrates the people, places, businesses, and stories that make the...
06/09/2026

Hi, local friends,

I've been creating something that celebrates the people, places, businesses, and stories that make the Lewis-Clark Valley such a special place to call home.

I'm excited to finally introduce The Valley Edit.

We're just getting started, but the vision is simple: tell great local stories, highlight incredible people, support local businesses, and showcase everything that makes our community unique.

Launching soon.

And we'd love your help.

Do you know someone with an inspiring story? A local business doing great things? A hidden gem more people should know about?

Tag them below or send us a message.

The People. The Places. The Stories.











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Lewiston, ID

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