Education - Outreach Using the Arts
on behalf of Mustangs and Burros

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Meet Our Board of Directors

​Executive Director, Melody DeBenedictis
      Melody moved to the west from the east 14 years ago with the hope of becoming a full time Fine Art Painter. Little did she know what passions lie ahead. On her first trip to wild horse range she was overwhelmed with the vast beauty of our western public lands. What started as a simple 'field trip' to gather photographs for painting references has become a life long mission. She spent the next 14 years traveling across the west camping and photographing wild mustangs, living on a wild horse sanctuary for a year, and learning wild horse behavior. Embracing the beauty of the land and its wild. As she learned more of our living legends being removed from the landscape we call our wild west, she began the journey of  learning for herself the issues first hand that surround the welfare of our wild mustangs and burros, on the range. To date she continues to travel, and tell the story of the wild mustang through the Arts. Traveling, scheduling and attending events to educate the public of the issues that surround our wild mustangs, burros and wild lands. Her travels have taken her across the west over the last 14 years. Melody has lived on a wild horse sanctuary for a year, been in a film using the arts to bring awareness around horse slaughter and had a multitude of other accomplishments as she has hosted art events, film festivals and more. She has adopted her own mustangs and lives on her ranch with her four equine, wild and domestic. 

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Director/Administrator, Mary Wunsch
       Mary is a life-long horse enthusiast. Since the age of 4 years old, if there was a horse nearby, Mary was there! She is a horsewoman-in-training and has volunteered at both horse barns and number of equine events throughout the years. For three years, Mary was a board member for the Colorado Arabian Horse Association and orchestrated an educational program to promote reading with fourth graders through the Black Stallion Literacy Foundation. She also volunteered as a writer and marketer for four years with the Colorado Horse Therapy group.
Mary has an MBA in marketing/public relations and a BBA in marketing. She has twenty-five plus years of experience in public relations and marketing communications for advertising agencies, public relations companies and other businesses in Honolulu, Hawaii and Denver, Colorado. As the Director of Public Relations for AAA Colorado, she generated more than nine million dollars in earned media via print, TV and radio broadcast stories and the internet.
She has been a business owner, writer, and social media maven. Her volunteer work has included special event fundraising for several nonprofit organizations.

Director/Secretary, Karl Zimmer
         Karl is a 25 year NASA retiree, with a background of programming and aerospace technology. He is proficient in computer programming and helping small business run efficiently so the vision is able to stay on focus. His computer skills keep the organization in check and balance. He is also a guitarist and singer, and has brought his creativity to the vision with music. Recording the songs that Melody has written on the range and bringing the words to life. When he isn't programming or working on music he spends time with the horses on their ranch in Westcliffe Colorado. Karl loves traveling, and He and Melody have traveled the open range across the west. He has become a positive voice for the wild mustang and burros, seeking answers for the multitude of problems they face. Karl is a compassionate person with a divers skill set he brings to the non profit.

Mustang Wild Mission is Registered with the Department of Revenue as a recognized Non for Profit EIN#99-0737167