Foothills Blog

When Henry Coffey (‘12) talks about his work today, crafting culturally buzzy and wildly original campaigns at one of the most innovative creative agencies in the world, there is a throughline that reaches all the way back to Foothills. Curiosity, playfulness, and the freedom to think differently shaped him early, and those qualities still drive his work.

Henry is now a Creative at Mischief in New York City, an agency consistently listed among the most inventive in the world. His recent projects include scripting a comedic Walmart Black Friday Western starring Walton Goggins, and creating a fifteen-inch Capri Sun “Solstice Pouch” that sold out instantly and sparked nearly a billion TikTok views. Before that, he helped lead Ads for Rats, a tiny public-art prank that went massively viral, earned USA Today coverage, and received top global honors in advertising.

But long before New York, London award ceremonies, and Good Morning America segments, Henry was a Foothills student who wrote a thirty-page play about Heracles long after the Greece unit was over simply because he was captivated. Rather than pulling him back to the planned curriculum, his teachers encouraged him to keep going.

“At Foothills, teachers had the freedom to feed your curiosity when it lit up,” Henry reflects. “That freedom made me more self-motivated and more disciplined. It is a paradox. The more room you are given to pursue what is interesting, the harder you work.”

After Foothills, Henry attended Boise High and then Boise State, during which time he wrote restaurant reviews for the Idaho Statesman. He moved to Washington D.C. after graduation, handled communications for Congressman Ben McAdams, and later contributed to national Senate and presidential campaigns. That path eventually led him to the Brandcenter at Virginia Commonwealth University, one of the top graduate programs in the world for advertising and creative strategy.

There, Henry and his collaborators made history. Their Adobe student campaign earned a D&AD Black Pencil, the highest global honor for student creative work. A year later, Ads for Rats earned another. It was the first time any student team had won two.

Henry traces several essential threads back to Foothills:

• Agency without arrogance. “Foothills made me feel like I belonged in any room. Not because I am better, but because I am allowed to be there.”
• Curiosity as fuel. “If you nurture curiosity early, the whole world becomes graduate school.”
• Playfulness as strategy. “Never growing up has been my secret weapon.”
• Teachers who knew when to lean in. He still credits Robbie Prokop for “every bit of math I still remember” and Kevin Kramer for making room for big questions, including an early obsession with the human brain.

Asked what he hopes Foothills families understand, Henry offers this. “You can get fractions anywhere. You cannot get a school that fuels curiosity everywhere. Thinking bigger about the next week, the next year, and your whole life becomes a habit. Foothills gave me that.”

Today, Henry lives at the intersection of art, comedy, technology, and cultural conversation. Whether he is writing for a national brand, collaborating with film directors, or exploring New York’s music and comedy scene, he carries the same mindset Foothills nurtured in him. Stay curious, take risks, and remember that play is powerful.

“It turns out the most rewarding things in life come from doing what you are actually excited about,” he says. “Foothills gave me the tools to chase that.”