February 4, 2026 · Stueckle Sky Center, Boise
The first one sold out.
Six honorees, a Naismith Hall of Fame keynote, three hundred and eight guests with a further forty student-athletes seated among them, and more than a quarter of a million dollars raised in a single evening.
The evening
Three minutes in the room.
If you are deciding whether to sponsor, attend or speak next February, start here rather than with anything we could write.
“I think the event is great, but what’s better is the purpose of the event.”Tara VanDerveer · keynote · quoted in the Idaho Press, February 5, 2026
The keynote
Tara VanDerveer, and a tribute narrated by Dawn Staley.
Naismith Hall of Fame, 1,216 career wins, three national championships and Olympic gold — and a coach whose first head coaching job was at the University of Idaho in 1978. She came back to Boise to open this, and received the Legacy of Impact Award from four women who played for her at Stanford.
Narrated by Dawn Staley. The award was presented by Jill Yanke, Trisha Stevens Lamb, Ann Enthoven and Angela Taylor — all of whom played for VanDerveer at Stanford.
The honorees
Six awards, given for the first time.
Each one names something specific about how a person moves girls and women forward in sport. Four honorees were introduced by a tribute film; all six are here.
Kristin Armstrong
Three Olympic gold medals in cycling, two world championships, and the only American woman to win the same event at three consecutive Summer Olympics. A University of Idaho graduate who came home.
Muffy Davis
Paralyzed in a Sun Valley ski accident at sixteen, then a Paralympic champion across three Games, a state legislator, and a county commissioner.
Jennifer Swindell
Idaho’s first female sports editor. Twenty years at the Idaho Statesman, then founder of Idaho Education News.
Kaya Evans
A 2023 Rhodes Scholar reading Comparative Social Policy at Oxford, who captained soccer at the College of Idaho after growing up in Pocatello.
Nations United
Founded by teacher-librarian Mary Karol Taylor at South Junior High in Boise, creating a place in sport for refugee young people.
Ava Johnson
The Alice & Charles Taylor award. Mountain Home valedictorian, four-year varsity basketball and softball, now studying nursing at Boise State — and founder of You Are More, a mental health initiative for student-athletes.
Which means the award she received was presented by the thing she built. Her school community sponsored it three times over.
Sponsor activations
Sponsorship you could stand inside.
The evening was organized like a game — tip-off, quarters, halftime. Each of these was a thing that happened inside it, attached to the company that made it possible, and every one is available again in 2027.
The Scoreboard
The whole evening ran on basketball time — tip-off, four quarters, halftime — with a live scoreboard keeping the room in it. Not a theme laid over a dinner; the actual structure of the night.
Powered by Saint AlphonsusThe Spirit Tunnel
Guests came in the way a team does, through a tunnel of noise. It set the register for everything that followed and it is the first thing most people mention.
Change Make*Hers Gala 2026Heat on Your Feet™
Guests swapped their shoes for something they could actually dance in, and the floor stayed full. One of those small ideas that changes the shape of an entire evening.
Presented by KeyBank
Heat on Your Feet™ · three hundred pairs of shoes under the tables
The room
Photographs from the night.
Click any image for the full-size version. Media are free to use these in coverage of the Foundation, with credit.
Were you there? The full gallery from the evening — every table, every award, the whole room — is with our photographer. Browse the full gallery →
It is set up for viewing rather than downloading. If you would like a copy of a photograph you are in, write to us and we will sort it out.
Photography: Pro Image Event Photography/The Taylor LEAD Foundation. Media are free to use these in coverage of the Foundation, with credit — higher-resolution versions are in the media kit.
Thank you
The people who paid for the room.
Twenty-one organizations and individuals backed the first Change Make*Hers Gala, from MVP down to the people who quietly took a youth table so that forty student-athletes could sit among the guests.
Saint Alphonsus
Trak Software
J.R. Simplot Company
Ann Enthoven · Idaho First Bank · TOK Commercial
First Federal Bank · KeyBank · Stoltz Marketing Group
College of Idaho · Idaho Education News · Proletariat Wines
Angeli Weller · The Coughlin Clinic
Sponsored the youth tables, so forty student-athletes could sit among the guestsAgainst · ICCU · Linda Yanke · Lindy Crawford · Sherilyn Laddimore · Tara Varga · The Comedy Lounge · Visit Boise · You Are More
You Are More took three Sideline Supporter places — the Mountain Home initiative founded by Ava Johnson, who received the Scholar-Athlete of the Year award that same eveningAhlquist · CAS Events · City of Boise
Support outside the tier ladder — CAS Events provided the paddles in kind, with their logo carried on every one. Saint Alphonsus also sponsored the scoreboard, credited with the activations above rather than listed twiceDennis Boatman
Acero Boards + Bottles · AC Boise · Fresh Prints · Hyatt Place Indianapolis · Indiana Fever · KIN Boise · Kristin Armstrong · Play It Again Sports · SCHEELS · Telaya Wine Co. · The Pickleball Barn · The PK Spot · The Riverside Hotel · YESSCHEF
Everything in the auction was given. Several of these came from outside Idaho entirely — the Indiana Fever and a hotel in Indianapolis sent items to a first-year gala in Boise.Nine of these are people, not companies. Board members, families and individuals who took a table or backed a tier because they wanted the room to exist.
And several bought tickets they did not use. Individuals and companies paid for seats so that student-athletes could have them — which, together with the youth tables, is the only reason forty of them were seated among the guests rather than watching from somewhere else. It is the least visible line on this page and close to the most important.
Coverage
Six outlets in eleven days.
Boise Centre West
Tip-off is February 10, 2027.
Everything on this page was a first attempt. Sponsorship for the second one is open now, honorees are announced through the autumn, and tickets follow in the winter — and last year sold out.
The Change Make*Hers Gala powered by iWIN Sports · 2026 · The Taylor LEAD Foundation · 501(c)(3) · EIN 99-2465893