2018 Instructors

Chad Ananda

Chad is a recently landed traveler and explorer. Has taught at Florida earthskills, Rivercane rvz, MAPS, and firefly. Chad spent time goat packing on the pct and lived in a tipi community year round in southern Oregon. He's now calling 2 acres in west Asheville home.

Xyara Asplen

Xyara is a homesteader, artisan, and creature of the woods. Since she was a young’un herself, she’s been fascinated with the complexity of our Appalachian ecology and loves to share stories of place and connection that help bring humans back into good health with the rest of the wild world. She's working in association with Kentucky Heartwood to develop the Rise & Root Rewilding Project, a nature connection mentoring program to help foster competence, confidence, and a sense of interconnectedness in these kids who are the future elders of our world. Check her out on facebook @riseandrootrewilding

John Allen

John Allen is an Knoxville based area artist, photographer and nature enthusiast. He teaches Drawing, Photography and Art History at several community colleges and worked to establish a Knoxville community arts project The Big Camera! John also has taken coursework as a Master Gardener at the Clemson Agricultural Extension and is passionate about native botany and biodiversity of the southern Appalachians. Checkout John's work at www.johnallenart.com and www.bigcamera.org

Andrew Bentley

Andrew Bentley is a clinical herbalist with a private practice in Lexington, Kentucky. He provides primary healthcare using remedies made from plants.

Terry Black

Terry black from shawblack farm a grower of ginseng and other medicinal roots and herbs.

Michelle Blair

Michelle is a Sage, an empath, plant whisperer, herbalist, & healer. Nature is the heart an soul of her. Michelle follows a nature based path of ancient wisdom, a path, laid out by her Mother, Nature herself. She shares a deep-rooted connection to nature, that has blessed her to hear the whispers of knowledge and wisdom. Thus guiding Michelle's workings, teachings, & herself. A nature spirit born in human form!

Eric Blevins

Eric Blevins has been practicing Thai massage for 10 years and yoga for 14. He started learning knots in 2006 as part of climb training for direct action. He is also a radio DJ in Nashville, TN.

Roberta Burnes

Roberta Burnes has 35 years experience as an environmental and astronomy educator. She enjoys combining art and science in her programs to help connect people with the natural world.

Aaron and Kellie Burns

Aaron has been keeping bees for over a decade now. Caring for over 400 colonies located in East TN, he has lots of information to offer. Kellie has been teaching beekeeping for eight years at a Knoxville Montessori school. With six different apiary locations, they co-manage their honey bee business, "The Burns and The Bees". Find us on Facebook @The Burns and The Bees.

Joseph Butterbaugh

Joe began his relationship with historic structures a decade ago when he deconstructed his first barn. Falling in love instantly he carefully deconstructed over a dozen historic structures before switching into the roll of a preservationist and repairing old buildings instead of salvaging them.

Joan Candalino

Joan is a maker of pottery, canvas tipis and tarps. She teaches various craft and sustainable living skills since the 1990's at primitive skills events. www.sweetwatertipi.com

Colleen Casey

Colleen is a lifelong maker of things, most of those things are fiber based. She teaches crochet, knitting, sewing, spinning, dying and felting. Colleen taught high school art for 12 years and now teaches at her local cultural arts center. She owns an online fabric company, take a look! http://stores.ebay.com/someartfabric

Sensei Paul Coffey

Sensei Paul Coffey has been studying martial arts for 25 years and teaching for 19 years. His approach is unique in that he does not view it strictly as a combative art but as a philosophy. Paul's years of practice have molded him in many ways, leading him to found a non profit in 2010 that provides martial arts to the under-served within the communities he can touch.

Christina Collins

Christina is a fiber artist committed to living gently on the earth.

Willie Dodson

Willie grew up in the piedmont and the mountains of Virginia. He graduated from Berea College with a degree in Appalachian Studies. Since 2004, Willie has been organizing for environmental and social justice in Appalachia with such groups as the Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards, the Southern Energy Network and the Mission and Service Board of Union Church in Berea, Ky. He lives in Wise County, Va., and is an old-time and not-so-old-time musician, a forager of wild foods and medicines, and a sucker for any grey-haired person who wants to tell a story. He genuinely likes people, even ones with whom he disagrees about everything. Checkout Appalachian Voices

Matt Ellison

Matt is a NABCEP certified solar PV installer with four years of experience and holds a degree in Biosystems engineering. He is finishing up a school bus-to-RV conversion and developing his off-grid homestead on an eight acre plot in Washburn, TN. He obtained his permaculture design certificate in fall of 2016 and recently quit his full-time job to pursue skills and experience around agriculture, natural building, and homesteading.

Sarah Fightmaster

Sarah run the public defender's office in Georgetown, KY. She has attended numerous trainings on Police Interaction: Knowing your Rights. Sarah does training for new attorneys with the agency. She feels there's info from a legal perspective that "we as lawyers should share."

Katie Gardner

Katie Gardner is a Registered Nurse, an Empowerment Self Defense Instructor, co-founder of Rise and Root Rewilding Forest School, as well as an all-around movement geek. She's fascinated by the ways that movement, nature immersion, and physical / psychological / emotional empowerment intersect and work together to make our lives more whole and satisfying.

Agnes A. Gazder

Angus has been doing this for many years, including showing friends and family as well as instructing last year, 2017, at the Whippoorwill festival.

Jeffery Gottlieb, MS

Jeff has been teaching Nature programs, living history experiences, survival skills and primitive crafts for more than 30 years. He teaches at Earthskills events, summer camps, schools, museums and outdoor education facilities and has built over 60 wigwams and primitive houses. He has written a how-to manual on building wigwams and an instructor's manual entitled Teaching Primitive Skills to Children. His new book on natural fibers and rope making is available directly from him. He can be reached at [email protected] or at 245 Red Dog Lane, Whittier, NC, 28789.

Lee Golos

Lee is a biologist and a teacher of movement arts and permaculture. His interests center around our potential for abundance, health, freedom, and self-actualization. His current focus is on researching and developing ways to transform biomass and cultivate nutritious food with a minimum of cost and labor. He teaches classes on a variety of topics at gatherings, festivals, retreats studios, co-ops, parks, and forests.

Tatum Green

Tatum Green has presented workshops at Whippoorwill for the past 2 years. She is a birth doula (Red Bird Doula Services) and enjoys spending time with her husband and four children, nature, and music.

Tim Green

Tim Green is a high school teacher by day and a pepper grower by weekends! He teaches special education and enjoys his family, kids, and his garden.

Bill Gordon

"Wild Bill" has over 40 years of experience teaching as an environmental educator and "nature detective." He is the founder/director of High Adventure Wilderness School. He has cruised and raced sailboats over 40,000 miles of ocean in the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Pacific, been featured on Kentucky Educational Television and in the Kentucky Everyday Heroes books, and has received numerous awards for his teaching, works, and volunteerism. He has a passion for teaching outdoors, canoeing, sailing, birdwatching, writing, and wilderness adventures. He lives off-grid in the eastern Kentucky woods near Red River Gorge in a homestead he built surrounded by organic gardens and orchards, numerous ponds and streams, and thriving forestlands. He quietly tries to be a living example of what he teaches.

Austin Hollis

A ‘lifestyle forager’ and woods-wanderer, Austin combines his many talents to demonstrate traditional life-ways and ‘survival’ skills at schools, gatherings, and events in Kentucky and surrounding areas. He is the editor of the quarterly online periodical, Edge of the Wild (facebook.com/MiddleearthReenactmentSociety) and teaches science and social studies for Jefferson County Public Schools. Austin has taught at the Whippoorwill Festival since 2016. For more information, see facebook.com/AHollisTeachingAndGoods.

Tim Hensley

Tim Hensley is a professional mushroom farmer and wildcrafter from Berea, and happens to be the Lexington, Kentucky restaurant scene's primary provider of gourmet wild mushrooms. He and his wife Jane Post offer hands-on educational workshops on their farm outside Berea. For more info: www.ForestRetreats.net

Emily Hemeyer

Emily Hemeyer is an arts educator and eco-nerd from St Louis Missouri where she heads the Wild Seed Field Museum through an entity known as SPORE Projects. Other endeavors include Temporal Cities: Blanket Fort Festival and meditative music project Ghosts I Have Been. Emily comes from a family of foragers, farmers, hunters, and crafters. She spotted her first morel playing in the creek at 6yrs old. Over the past decade, she's spent countless hours learning all she can about edible mushrooms and plants. On the long-term, she's working establish a plant/fungus sanctuary on her family's 300-acre farm in Northern Missouri.

Melody Hunsinger

Melody Hunsinger along with 2 board members just recently embarked on creating Elohi (cherokee for earth) Community Land Trust in Chattanooga. In fulfilling the educational aspect they are creating a podcast called "little green birdie" to help others learn how to be better stewards of the land. They have acquired 2 land plots and will be turning 1 into a community garden and the other will be the build site for a hybrid shipping container home.

Olivia Immitt

Olivia has helped heal herself through is power of sound. Because of this experience she has been inspired to help others learn how to use sound as a healing tool. Practicing sound healing will help many ailments. For example sound healing is effective for physical pain, emotional pain, trauma, stress or just relaxation.

Lauren Kallmeyer

Lauren has been studying herbalism intensely over the last four years while pursuing a Master’s degree in Therapeutic Herbalism at Maryland University of Integrative Health. She is a member of the American Herbalists Guild and United Plant Savers and organizer of The Kentucky Herbalism Alliance. www.facebook.com/KentuckyHerbalAlliance/

Tod Kershaw

Tod is a an engineer turned dumpster-diving fringe dweller. He left the mainstream, but kept his cleverness. Tod lives in a bark hut, carries water and cooks on fire at Wildroots in Madison County, NC.

Gregory King

Gregory King is a Kentucky based acupuncturist and herbalist. He is the founder of People's Acupuncture of Louisville a social medicine enterprise. Greg operates on the premise that health is innate and the role of the healer is to cultivate that with the individual.

Zack Kouns

Zack Kouns is a lecturer, fermentation missionary, ecumenical journalist, bandleader, performer, author, visual artist, film maker, researcher, prankster, and composer. He has been transfixed by fermented foods ever since he had his first bubbly, drink of Smreka in a tiny Bosnian village many years ago and began his experiments with the microbial and bacterial world soon after. This journey of food preservation has led him to incorporate foraging, another passion of his, into the ferments that he works with to create truly wild medicinal fermented foods. Zack is very passionate and excited about teaching people about the astoundingly beautiful natural world around us and the vital sources of wonder, nourishment, healing and deepened spirituality that the misunderstood plants that people mistakenly called "weeds" offer us all, if we stop and take the time to observe and marvel at them! A life-long resident of rural Appalachia, the region in its juxtaposition of beauty, brutality, love and poverty also plays heavily into the aesthetic of Kouns' work. Checkout Zack at www.zackkouns.org

Cecilia Li

Cecilia Li is an artist, cuddle professional and consent warrior. Her life mission is to foster a positive sense of community (sometimes through platonic cuddles). She is currently illustrating The Book of Cuddles, which will be available in late September. www.cuddlewithc.com

Karen Lanier

Karen Lanier is a freelance writer, environmental educator, media producer, and gardener. For many years, she migrated through state and national parks as a seasonal park ranger. She put down roots in Lexington in 2012 and currently specializes in farm education. She authored the book The Woman Hobby Farmer (Fox Chapel, 2017) and edited the book Wildlife in Your Garden (Lumina, 2016). Karen blogs about the wilder aspects of gardening, and the softer side of farming. Karen loves to explore nature and gardening with her camera in hand, and prefers to view the world through the lens of a child’s curiosity and wonder. She offers workshops, private lessons, and writing through her business, KALA Creative.

Cynthia Main

Cynthia Main is a traditional woodworker and plant lover who recently relocated to Kentucky after 4 years in intentional communities in the midwest. A tool maker, sometimes non-electric liver, and maker, she loves skill trading, especially in formats for inclusive learning.

Kellie Montgomery "Alysin"

Kellie Montgomery (who prefers to go by Alysin), owns Abundant Joy Jewelry, loves traveling, meeting other artists and hosting arts and crafts festivals for a living. She started making paper beads after loosing 40 Japanese books that she collected in a flood. The books were ruined, and no longer useful as books to be read, but was unable just throw them away. After going online and researching re-purposing and up-cycling books, Alysin found paper beads! Four years later, and long after the Japanese books were gone, she started using wallpaper sample books, magazines, wrapping paper, and just about any other kind of paper she could roll into beads. Although new to teaching paper beading, Alysin loves the idea of sharing her passion with others! Follow her on Facebook and Instagram!

Amanda Neufeld

Amanda Dawn is an herbalist, yoga and bellydance teacher, and mother of a spunky 6 year old boy, River. She has been practicing yoga, bellydance and herbalism for over 12 years. She teaches and facilitates bellydance and yoga classes, herbal medicine workshops, and other women's wellness workshops for the last 5 years in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and has been focusing on expanding her herbal medicine business, Leonara Apothecary. Check her out on facebook.com/LeonaraApothecary/ and amandaneufeld86.wixsite.com/leonara

Bill Parravano

Bill is “The Knee Pain Guru” and “The Best in the World at Eliminating Knee Pain without Drugs, Shots or Surgery.” He has over 25 years of martial art and body work experience understanding movement and tensions patterns that lead to physical pain. Bill believes the nervous system holds the key to the body’s healing. It bridges the gap between what we currently know and the infinite number of possibilities for the body to heal in the realm of what we don’t know. For more information see: www.TheKneePainGuru.com

Willow Peters

Willow is our youngest instructor to date! She is a student interested in art, drama, music, and playing ukulele.

Dustin Pickett

Dustin Pickett is a poetry-maker, nature-based guide, free-play facilitator, father, and advocate for social and ecological healing. He champions the return of the rewilding spirit; ancestral skills, the restoration of old ways, connection with place & ancestry, the transformative power of lamenting and wandering, and the vitality of our neglected ways of knowing: imagination, eros, poetry, and play. It is his life’s work to reconnect people of all ages and backgrounds with the natural world, our primary source of belonging, healing, and humanity. See more about his work here: https://dustinpickett.wordpress.com/about/

Aaron Pollitt

A naturalist, environmental activist, permaculture designer, songwriter, and facilitator. Aaron has participated in a variety of earthskills gatherings around the country and has been involved in many social movements both large and small. When not working on his homestead in Southern Indiana he can often be found exploring the mountains around Asheville, NC and singing sweet songs with friends around campfires.

Dan Price

Dan Price is a lifelong amateur astronomer and student of science originally from Buffalo, New York. He has been conducting astronomy outreach programs in Minnesota and Kentucky for the better part of a decade. Price's passion for public education stems from the belief that a better understanding of the way the world works is a cornerstone of compassion and community.

Andrew Ozinskas

Andrew is a clinical herbalist, professional wildcrafter, and teacher/student of the natural mysteries. He is based on his family homestead in Owen County, KY and in the highlands of WV. His teaching experience includes the Appalachian herbal intensive for Bastyr University, laboratory phyto-chemistry & Alchemical studies, mentorships, and courses on these subjects around the US.

Princess Zak

Princess Zak is a traveling Zak of all trades. Constantly nomadic proletariat lifestyle leads to an ever evolving set of skills, ideas, friends, destinations, and conversations. I am a Human Being.... Being is a verb....

Diane Satterfield

Diane Satterfield was born in Louisville, Kentucky. Her ancestry is that of Appalachian coal miners from Tennessee and Eastern Kentucky, of whom she is very proud. Twice she has hosted a Paranormal Appalachian workshop for the Whippoorwill Festival, where everyone was welcomed to tell their own unique stories, and discuss the paranormal aspects of life. Her book which is now on Amazon, and Kindle, is called "Para ab Normal in Kentucky."

Roman Stinespring

Originally from Ohio, Roman has been an instructor at Piedmont Wildlife Center out of Durham, North Carolina for 2 years now. He teaches a range of adult classes at this camp including, Pine Needle Basket Making, Flint Knapping, and Leather Sewing.

Brittany Tackett

Brittany Tackett is a school-based therapist in Boyd County, Kentucky with a passion for mindful and sustainable living. Her "big dream" she is trying to make a reality is to bring mindfulness into every school and to create a charter school system with a curriculum grounded in the values of mindfulness, compassion, empathy, tolerance, community, and sustainability.

Christian Torp

Christian L. Torp is an attorney, missionary, writer (facebook: The Amos Farm), activist, urban-farmer, foster parent and advocate for social change who lives at Justice House (facebook: Justice House) with his wife, Tanya and son, Atticus in Lexington, Kentucky.

Micah Wiles

Micah grew up in the hills of southern KY and studied Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry at Warren Wilson College in North Carolina. After college he returned to the family farm where he has been raising grass fed beef, keeping a milk cow, growing fruit and nut trees, mushrooms and teaching workshops. He has been tanning hides for about 5 years and has taught tanning classes at Warren Wilson College and at his family's farm. (cedarcreekfarmky.com)

Zimbo

Former Rhodesian, former Army Green Beret Officer, former Chemical Engineer, current organic Diversified Farmer. Zimbo grew up in the African bush, has adventured all over the world and nowalso works with clients, to: select, finance, set up and operate their land. For those who want a land-based lifestyle business, farm, retirement dream home, doomsday prepper site or homestead.
Checkout www.poweredbynature.net

The Whippoorwill Festival - Skills for Earth Friendly Living
July 17-19, 2020
Lago Linda Hideaway, Beattyville, KY (location and weather)