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Bud and Linda Henderson Are A Publishing Team By Jack McNeel Marriage, retirement, and relocation came nearly simultaneously for Bud and Linda Henderson. It wasn’t long before a tax problem and mutual interests contributed to a new hobby and an additional source of income for the two of them. But let’s back up. They were living in Los Angeles back in the 1990s, where they met, started dating, became engaged... but they came to Idaho for their wedding. Linda commented they found Lewiston while on a vacation and Bud said to her, “I really love that place and I’d really love to retire there. Why don’t we start our new life up in Idaho?” So they did. The tax problem came around at tax time during that first year of marriage. “The government just cleaned our clock. We didn’t have any tax deductions,” Linda explained. “Bud was an insurance agent for 31 years and was used to having business deductions.” During those first months together Bud had found that Linda liked to write and was very expressive in her writing. She had started a journal and had written about trips, the scenery, the rocks, and volcanic canyons they had seen. This made a big impression on Bud who had a lifetime interest in photography. An idea was formed. As Linda describes it, “One morning Bud said, ‘We need to have a serious talk. I’ve been thinking.’ I always just cringe when Bud says, ‘I’ve been thinking.’ He said, ‘You like to write and I like to take pictures. That sounds to me like we ought to start writing for magazines and have a business of our own.’” And so they formed their new business/hobby to utilize their interests and provide some tax shelter. Linda did not know anyPhoto by Bud Henderson thing about writing but Bud was supportive and another local writer, Lenny Frasure, helped get her started and provided encouragement. “We started looking for stories. We got to take a real honest-to-goodness sleigh ride, the first in my life,” Linda relates. “I wrote about it and got it published in a camping magazine, and I was launched.” That was in 1997, her first published story, but many others would soon follow. Meanwhile Bud was brushing up on his photography to take the photos to illustrate Linda’s stories. He had been interested in photography since his kids were little. “That was roughly 50 years ago,” he says. In those early years it had been more of the snapshot variety. “I got pretty serious about photography just before digital popped its head up.” (Continued on page 15)