Biography  

Education: Sunny graduated Summa Cum Laude from Colorado State University with a degree in Anthropology. She was the first person in her family to graduate from college. Some of her favorite courses included: Environmental Conservation; Sociology of Resource Management; Society, Technology and the Environment; Human Ecology; Comparative Legal Systems; Social Change; Cultural Change; Logic and Critical Thinking; and Environmental Ethics.  She worked hard and never received less than an 'A' in all her years of college.  We know she will work hard for the people of Idaho.

Career/Service: Sunny understands the struggles of working class families. In her early years she worked a variety of jobs - from waitress, to housekeeper, to ski lift operator, to a Kodak factory producing lithograph plates and driving a fork-truck. For the last 7 years she and her husband Daryl have run a small business producing specialized sports equipment, selling their products wholesale as well as retail through the internet. Daryl is also a structural engineer for Power Engineers. 

• Sunny has coordinated youth programs for many years and continues to volunteer her time working with teens at her church and in the community. She is passionate about youth because they are our greatest resource and our future.
• She has experience as a CASA, an advocate for children in the courts.
• She was also a member of the Head Start Policy Council as a parent participant while her youngest son Cameron was in the Head Start Program.
• Sunny volunteered in the jails teaching art to inmates while involved with L.O.F.I., a non-profit Community Art Coalition.  
• She has more recently been a community volunteer at the Interfaith Sanctuary homeless shelter in Boise.
• Sunny has worked as a substitute teacher in the Nampa school district and has worked one-on-one with special needs children.
• She was a personal assistant for her 84 year old grandfather for a few years. 
• Sunny is currently on the public participation committee for COMPASS, the Community Planning Association of Southwest Idaho, working to engage the public in the process of transportation and land-use planning. 
• She is also the Secretary/Treasurer of the Greenhurst Estates Home Owner's Association.
• Her primary focus for the last two years has been the passage of H.R. 808. She is concerned about violence in our society and has been working to pass this legislation at the federal level because it would fund programs throughout the country in violence prevention, gang prevention, prisoner rehabilitation, conflict resolution, and the training of a US peacekeeping force. If passed, the legislation would provide assistance to our police and military. She lobbies Congress as a volunteer citizen, not a paid lobbyist.
• She has also been the advisor for the Idaho Student Peace Alliance.
• She teaches at the Peace Village Day camp each summer.
• Sunny created a program for youth called Teaching Peace where children learned cooperation skills, conflict resolution skills, respect for nature, principles of nonviolence, the history of peacemakers, and more.

Brief History:

Sunny was born in Oregon and raised in Gillette, Wyoming, the daughter of a coal miner and a carpenter. Her family lived for several years on a sheep ranch where she raised rabbits, chickens and pigs. Sunny loved being a Girl Scout and after eight years of scouting she became a camp councilor. She was given many educational opportunities in a school system well funded by coal and oil revenue. She was in a gifted and talented program called SEEK and competed in the State Future Problem Solving competition and the Olympics of the Mind World Championships. Sunny was also a dedicated athlete. She ran cross country and track and was a state champion in both. She received All-American honors at the National Cross-Country Jr. Olympics placing 19th in the country. After graduating from high school she moved to Colorado where she lived for almost 15 years, enjoying time in the Rocky Mountains snowboarding, rock climbing, hiking and camping, before moving to Nampa in 2004. In 2004 Sunny placed 3rd in the Footbag World Championships in Montreal and continues to compete with athletes half her age.  Sunny's aunt, uncle and cousins live in northern Idaho and have land near Stanley. She and her husband Daryl Genz have been married for 7 years and they have two boys, Dylan and Cameron.