About Katy
Katy’s passion for outdoor adventures was genuine and profound. As a young girl visiting her grandparents in Mandeville on weekends, she spent hours in the drainage ditches behind their house chasing crawfish, tadpoles, snakes and everything slimy.
When she learned about summer camp in the mountains, she was all in. The camp in Brevard, North Carolina made an age exception, allowing her to attend. She embraced the unknown and was fearless. She spent many summers at camp in North Carolina and then in Colorado, always finding new challenges, even in the mundane.
Camps nurtured experiential learning and an unconventional path. She attended a junior boarding school in western Connecticut and then high school in upstate New Hampshire. Her study of forestry, natural sciences and conservation, including a four month outdoor classroom in National Parks and Indian Reservations out west resulted in her selection to the environmental honor society at high school graduation.
College in western North Carolina further nurtured her outdoor activism; she selected a curriculum of farm science, outdoor leadership and service work. She had a home menagerie as well —including a dog, cat, snake, fish and eleven chickens. Katy’s love of her surroundings was unflinching and robust.
