Well, one year went by and we are delighted to share with you that on December 8th, 2009, Entertainment Tonight, one of the biggest entertainment magazines posted in their website the Beautiful Women of North Dakota event:

I had tears in my eyes when I saw the images and I couldn’t stop imagining a teenage girl watching this video and being inspired to one day be on that Red carpet. A place walked by women that are vivid testimonials that the life long beauty a lot of us are desperately searching for, is not in a miracle lotion bottle, but inside our souls.

I look back on our journey to bring the Beautiful Women project to light and I remember the difficulties and hurdles that my husband and I needed to face to make this dream come true. I will be honest with you, sometimes it wasn’t easy, especially when we were on the road trying to interview the women, taking care of our 3 kids, and I was having my PMS days…(I don´t wish this to any man to have to deal with a “Latin-PMS- Woman” in a motorhome! LOL).

But as a photographer’s wife, the moments I was feeling really tired and overwhelmed, what kept me faithful in the journey was realizing that any beautiful picture we want to see in the world, begins… in the dark room.

Today I want to express my gratitude to every one that helped us to continue on  this journey, especially the One that gave us the light, and the faith we needed to continue to dream, even when we were in the dark.

I wish to you and to your family a Beautiful Holiday Season!

Chris Linnares

PS: As eternal dreamers, we are still waiting for Anna Wintour´s call. We can’t wait to see these Beautiful Women on the pages of Vogue magazine!

Book Signing with Billy Black and Chris Linnares at

Zandbroz
420 North Broadway
Fargo, ND

December 17, 6-8 pm

The banner outside the Rourke Art Museum.

Change is happening. The world is shifting. Entertainment Tonight is going to run some footage of our gala event Saturday night at the Rourke. The estimate is over 300 people attended. Sorry to all those that could not get in or were turned away. We had no idea so many people would come. For those of you that hung in there. Thank you. It was so inspiring to think that everyone showed up to honor these 22 beautiful women. Camera’s, lights, red carpet, reporters, music, what a great evening.

My Family and parents.

I pray the world responds to what we are saying. The definition of beauty needs to be expanded. Our modern world has focused too much on the physical. The physical is beautiful, it is hard not to be mesmerized by a prairie sunset or a starry sky. But so is your neighbor. Your grandmother, the lady serving you coffee in the morning. These are the people quietly making our world better. I have always said they wont be in Vogue magazine or on Entertainment Tonight. Well you know what? Entertainment Tonight says they will put them on TV. I still am not sure I believe it. I will wait and see. But we are inspiring change. 100’s of people have commented on our web site, book, and documentary. I want 1,000s, I want 10,000s. I want every 14 year old girl to look at our book and completely understand why the title is beautiful women, but not only understand but to feel. We understand how a plane flies and how toast is made. I want people to feel a tingle up their spine when they see that next prairie sunset they see. See the beauty in the first snowstorm of the season. Beauty is all around us. We just need to breath it in and open our eyes.

My Family

BB

When I arrived at US customs on my first trip to North Dakota, the immigration officer looked over my Brazilian passport and my airline ticket.  When he saw my destination —  Fargo, North Dakota — He asked, “What are you going to do in Fargo, coming from Brazil?”

I didn’t hesitate and with a big smile, full of hope, I told him, “I met my soul mate. We’re getting married, and I’m moving to Fargo!”  Laughing, he said, “You truly must love this man.”

Who says North Dakota is always cold? Here are the kids and grandparents in Medora on a beautiful day!

At the time, I didn’t understand why he said that.  Raised in Sao Paulo, one of the largest cities in the world, I didn’t know much about North Dakota besides a brief conversation I had with a woman that told me they have the four seasons – winter, still winter, not winter, and almost winter.

Many people from all over the world and even within the US have a superficial cliché idea of this part of the country: brutal winters, bugs in the summer and not much to do.  To be completely honest, many times during the four years I’ve lived here, I have focused on these ideas.

In July of 2009, my husband and I became passionate about exposing our three daughters to ordinary women creating extraordinary lives. We took our family on a road trip in a motor home, or “house truck,” as our 3-year-old called it. Our goal: create a book about women who are quietly making our world a more beautiful place.

At the time, I thought this was our only purpose.  What I couldn’t have known was that the vastness of the plains and the endless beautiful skies would invite me on one of the most fascinating trips of my life, a journey unto myself. . .

In Bismarck, 102 year old Beautiful Woman, Tollie Schaumberg, Billy and I.

When I complained about how hard it is to live in this cold weather, inside my heated cozy home, I met women who bravely shared with me how they survived the harsh winters and the hardships of the Great Depression.

When I whined about being overwhelmed with my motherly duties taking care of one toddler, I met women who happily shared with me how proud they were for raising 11 children on an isolated farm or working to build an orphanage to help kids in South Sudan.

When I was feeling unmotivated to get up on a cold day to get my workout finished, I met women who happily shared with me how they every day overcome their physical disabilities and act as a force for good, for their families and communities.

In Rugby, at the Geographical Center of North America

The beauty of their stories — told with joy, peace or a tear — touched my heart in a special way that they helped me to see the beauty and light we all can be.

Our journey through North Dakota opened my eyes beyond the stereotypes and I felt truly in love with this blessed country. I wonder about women in other states who are quietly making the world a more beautiful place. I want them to be recognized, women from every state, because these are the women I want my daughters to see and hear about.

Izzy and Zoe with ND Governor Hoeven

No matter where you live, I invite you to travel on this journey with us. Take the opportunity to see these beautiful women and read their remarkable stories. I hope you will feel inspired, as my husband and I were, to embrace this cause and ask yourself one simple question:
How do I want to be remembered?

I discovered this contradiction while traveling throughout the state this past summer with my wife, three daughters, and my parents. My intention was to expand the definition of beauty beyond our society’s focus on its physical nature. I invite you to take this journey with us–a journey of self-discovery–a journey that changed our lives forever.

As we met, interviewed, and photographed extraordinary women who’ve made this state their home, we discovered more about us and our own attitudes than we did about them. More about our society. About the very essence of life.

In Edinburg with Sharon Laxdal with a beautiful North Dakota landscape in the background.

Vogue magazine should be covering these women. Entertainment Tonight should be here interviewing Christine Peterson as she boards a plane for Afghanistan, leaving her husband and two children behind–and her patients–she is one of the only caregivers for hundreds of miles in her rural hometown. But Christine has a duty to the country she serves, and she carries it out with dignity, the way she’s approached all the challenges in her life. The women we’re featuring are not unlike women in your own neighborhood, women you remember from your childhood, women in your own families.

My daughter, Izzy, Rachel and myself at Rachel's Photo Shoot.

My mission is to share these photos and stories with every young girl pondering how best to live her life in this complicated world. My hope is that the Beautiful Women of North Dakota project will inspire young girls, their families, and their friends to reach for something more.

In Milnor, Chris and I. Taken by a Beautiful Woman in our book, Karen Wohler.

Billy

35 years ago I had taken a similar trip with my parents.  I had forgotten some of the beauty of our Peace Garden state. As we wound our way around this expansive state the theme for our trip was continually in our heads. Beauty. Writers, artists, poets some of the worlds wisest people have attempted to come up with the definitive definition. And today’s modern culture has made the word more blurry then ever.  Beautiful Women of North Dakota will take you down an alternative road. A road truly ‘less traveled’ then most. But just as important. In the next few weeks I will relay to you some of the wonderful stories we ran across, with our Beautiful Women to be reveled in mid October.

Our trip we took with my parents and my father wrote a great article about the trip that ran in newspapers around the state.  Here is a link.

https://secure.forumcomm.com/?publisher_ID=1&article_id=246466