Magic Valley Liberty Alliance was founded in April of 2021 for the express purpose of impacting our local area, educating our community, and restoring our liberties.
MVLA does not endorse or oppose legislators or candidates.
Meet the Team
Lyle Johnstone, President
Lyle is a three-generation native to Jerome County and a founding board member of MVLA in 2021. He and his wife have been married since 1977, have three sons and daughters-in-laws, are grandparents to six and great-grandparents of two. Lyle’s varied background includes farming, sales, business consulting and accounting. As a follower of the God of the Bible, he has a passion for rightly dividing the Word of truth and spending many years immersing himself in the Bible.
With MVLA’s goal of affirming our constitutional republic form of government, Lyle strives to return the Magic Valley to a respectful form of diminutive government — not government by one-world entities, i.e., World Economic Forum and the Idaho Association of Commerce & Industry.
It was while Lyle ran for the Idaho Legislature in 2018 that he became painfully aware of the split in the Republican Party: true conservative Republicans and those in name only. He aims to encourage, educate, and assist liberty-loving, liberty-minded people to hold our elected representatives accountable.
“When government gets big, happiness decreases; from Kings to Socialists.” – Adam Smith
Brian Smith, Vice President
Born and raised in the Magic Valley, Brian and his wife have three children, one of which resides in heaven. Brian is a born-again Christian who loves Idaho and our country.
Over the years, Brian has watched with growing concern Magic Valley’s family farms turn into subdivisions or large commercial operations, an influx of big-box stores, chain restaurants and hotels, and with that growth our once God-fearing conservative governance of “We the People” (the true government) become marred by anti-God special interest money and self-serving politicians.
Brian joined MVLA as a founding board member in 2021 to help fight against and expose the corruption that plagues our Magic Valley and state government. He remains committed to upholding and strengthening our constitutional republic form of government.
“I am committed…to the Constitution of the country…. And I am committed against everything, which, in my judgment, may weaken, endanger, or destroy it….; and especially against all extension of executive power; and I am committed against any attempt to rule the free people of this country by the power and the patronage of the government itself…” -Daniel Webster
Kathy Thomsen, Treasurer
Like many who watched the 2020 general election returns in disbelief, and the January 6, 2021 newsfeeds in horror, she knew she needed to do more than wear an “I VOTED” sticker on election day.
Born and raised in southern Idaho, she is the lucky daughter of parents who provided a wonderful education in a multi-generational business and loved their country as much as their six kids.
She believes our once trusted institutions since childhood are no longer safe — from the library to the schoolhouse, the hospital to the statehouse and the voting booth to the post office.
She joined MVLA in 2023. And soon after joining Election Integrity Idaho, she realized Magic Valley commissioners and the Twin Falls County clerk had as much to learn about elections and machines as she did!
Though local efforts to get rid of election machines and return to hand counts have yet to prove fruitful, the goal of electing America First candidates from the precinct to the statehouse is finding success.
Gloria Mayoh, Secretary
Gloria lived in Washington state most of her life. In 2005, she entered the world of politics. She realized western Washington was socialist at best and she needed to become part of the solution. The conservatives in her county saw failure after failure. Then came COVID and a stolen election.
She couldn’t succeed as precinct committeeman in her precinct as she was surrounded by RINO’s. In August 2023, she moved to Twin Falls. One month later, she attended her first town hall meeting. She was astonished to discover Idaho was NOT a red state.
After meeting many like-minded patriots, she decided to become an MVLA member in 2026 in order to once again become part of the solution
Doreen Alexander
Born and raised in Southern California, the religious freedoms, political wellbeing and conservative people in Idaho were a great comfort and blessing when she arrived in 2002.
As a wife and mother, she fears her children are losing the freedoms and liberty in which they were born into and deserve. The need for individuals who love freedom to get involved has never been more warranted.
This awareness lead her to join MVLA in 2021, and has shown her how quickly we can lose these blessings in our country and witness the Constitution being trampled.
Doreen believes we all need to be aware of the battle before us. There is no better time than now to be awake and striving to make changes that better the Magic Valley and our country. MVLA is where she has found to best make those changes.
“When the righteous increase, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people groan.” Proverbs 29:2
Ryeker Herndon
He lives in the Magic Valley, works as a full-stack software engineer, has kids, and is involved in his church. He got serious about local liberty when he realized our freedoms don’t defend themselves.
A board member since 2021, Ryeker continues to serve by leading MVLA’s Media Team through Spudservative podcast. As host, Spudservative focuses on conservative Idaho politics and constitutional accountability. He’s also building the Magic Valley Liberty Literacy Initiative—a digital effort that helps everyday people understand elections, applied conservatism, and local government overreach through city council analysis and public records.
Antoinette (Toni) McNeill
Toni believes the privileges we have in this country come from our Creator and are preserved in our founding documents. As citizens it is our responsibility and duty to protect and defend our Constitution from enemies — foreign and domestic.
Born and raised in sunny California, California became so oppressive, divisive, and one-party controlled that in 2016, she and her family moved near family in Jerome.
Like many transplants, she soon saw the red flags when she began attending local Republican meetings, where she encountered the same ‘Go along to get along’ mentality of California.
Toni joined MVLA in 2021, and brings from her experiences in San Diego an understanding that we don’t need to reinvent the wheel; we just need to adhere to our founding documents and hold politicians accountable.
If we were to remove the Bible from public schools, we would be wasting so much time punishing crimes and taking so little pains to prevent them. – Benjamin Rush
Hilber Nelson
Twin Falls has been his home since 1992. Married in 1978, he and his wife are parents of two children, grand parents of five and great-grandparents.
As one the founding members of MVLA since its inception in 2021, it is from a love for God and His commandment to love our neighbor that motivates him to take a biblical approach to protecting our God-given freedoms and preserve families from those who seek their destruction.
He serves as one of the content contributors of MVLA’s Media Team. He’s also an abstract artist.
He joined MVLA for its commitment to ensuring our legislators and local officials protect our freedoms, and work for We the People.
Jeff Pierson
Jeff joined MVLA in 2026. He is a third-generation Jerome resident. His family homesteaded in the Magic Valley in the early 1900s, and he has spent his life in Idaho farm country. He and his wife have four children, the oldest born in 1989 and the youngest a high school freshman.
He is a civic journalist, policy researcher, and technology consultant. He taught information technology courses part time at a local college from 2002 to 2004, began consulting in information technology in 2004, and expanded services in 2017.
He owns Confidential Solutions LLC, where he works as a technology consultant and general contractor on audiovisual, artificial intelligence, and infrastructure projects. He also spent twelve years as Information Management Director at South Central Public Health District, leading special projects across information technology and public information.
Jeff has served on a local charter school board, a parks board, and the boards of various nonprofits over the years. He writes on local government accountability, energy and land use policy, property taxation, and surveillance technology at jeffapierson.com and jeffapierson.substack.com. He is one of the content contributors of MVLA’s Media Team.
Joshua Van Dyke
As a board member of MVLA in 2026, he is inspired by Henry David Thoreau’s treatise Civil Disobedience with the opening line, “I heartily accept the motto; ‘That government is best which governs least’; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically” sums up the relationship that should exist between man and his government. Joshua loves this essay that guides his political philosophy.
MVLA’s mission closely aligns with his own and those of Thoreau’s while maintaining the banner of the Republican party overall. His platform while running for precinct committeeman in Castleford in 2026, was to represent the desires of his constituents. There was no pre-planned agenda because that agenda belongs to the voice of the People.
Born and raised in Alaska, he has experienced multiple cultures and peoples across the United States and the globe, but Magic Valley is home now.
Leslie Wolff
She and her husband moved to Twin Falls in 2016 to get out of “the crazy of living in a big, crime-infested city” in California.
Leslie took a job at the Twin Falls County Assessor’s Office in January 2018, while enjoying their small hobby farm, complete with chickens, goats, pigs, and bees.
In moving to Idaho, Leslie expected to find a community aligned with good conservative values. To her surprise, she discovered that many Magic Valley Republicans leaned far left, masquerading under the Republican banner. It was an eye-opening experience that fueled her determination to seek out genuine conservative voices, like Magic Valley Republican Women and ultimately to joining MVLA in 2025.
Her journey has sparked a newfound purpose of sharing with others our God-given liberties and how to fight to keep them.
Glenneda Zuiderveld
Glenneda is a founding board member of MVLA in 2021, and has been actively involved in local government in the Magic Valley since 2016. After an unsuccessful run for the Idaho House of Representatives in 2018, she continued serving her community and was elected to the Idaho Senate in 2022, where she served for four years.
Glenneda’s heart for service drives her commitment to educate, equip, and activate citizens to take an informed role in their government and hold government officials accountable to the people. She is dedicated to defending Idaho’s sovereignty, upholding our constitutional republic, and protecting the freedoms entrusted to us. Through her work with MVLA, she continues to fight for a future in which the next generation can live free and carry forward the responsibility of preserving liberty.
Tom Zuiderveld
A founding member of MVLA in 2021, Tom has been actively educating and engaging in our local, state and federal government since 2016. He’s been involved in many different patriot movements, building relationships with elected officials, liberty groups and fellow constituents.
Tom realizes our freedoms and liberties are our responsibility. If we do not know what our constitutional God-given rights are, we will never know when they have been taken away.
Tom has devoted much time to learning our State and U.S. Constitutions, Federalist papers and founding history to be better prepared to keep our Republic.
His goal is to preserve our liberties for his children and grandchildren. Tom draws strength and courage from our Creator, through whom God alone we have been granted our unalienable rights.
“Constitutional Republic, if you can keep it.” — Benjamin Franklin
Contact us: news@mvlibertyalliance.org