After going back to school to receive her Level 3 Forest School Practitioner Award through Archimedes Earth Forest School Education, she and her husband Danny built an interactive nature preserve and forest school on 8 acres of their property. While taking her Level 3 Practitioner course she concurrently took a Forestry Management class through Virginia Tech that was offered to landowners. This class was called Woodland Options for Landowners. The course included land stewardship and sustainability, property deeds and boundary lines, maps, photos, and soil surveys, forest ecology and management, tree identification, management options, sources of assistance, and planning. She is currently enrolled in the Virginia Master Naturalist Course and hopes to graduate within the year with full certification. She is currently working as the Director and Lead Practitioner of the school, ONE Forest School at Deerhead Nature Preserve, in downtown Huddleston, Virginia. She is also recognized as the founder and CEO of this nonprofit organization. To her credit, ONE Forest School is the first accredited and internationally recognized Forest School in the state of Virginia. Catherine Eubank has held the position of Vice President and President of the Board of Directors for the Friends of the Moneta/Smith Mountain Lake Library. She is also on the Board of Directors for the Virginia Inland Sailing Association in the position of Rear Commodore. Spending time on her 30’ Columbia Sailboat is one of her favorite things! Catherine and Danny Eubank collectively have eight children and fourteen grandchildren. They are currently living on the property with their youngest daughter Emily, her daughter Ren, and their two year old bloodhound Daisy Dog.

Katherine Justice was born in Greensboro, North Carolina. She graduated from Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, NC in December 1981 with a Bachelor of Science in Early Childhood Education and a minor in Reading. After receiving her education, Katherine married and moved to Boston, MA where she started her civil service career. As a personnelist, she was responsible for recruiting engineers and technical support personnel for Hanscom Air Force Base. She continued to work in personnel management at Arnold Engineering Development Center, Manchester, Tennessee and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio. She transferred to Dahlgren Naval Base, Dahlgren, Virginia and began working with the AEGIS Weapon Systems Program, AEGIS Training Facility, as a Curriculum Development Assistant. In September 1996, Katherine and her husband adopted a daughter who had suffered abuse and a Traumatic Brain Injury. They made the decision that Katherine would resign from Federal Service to devote her time to the education of their daughter. When their daughter reached adulthood, Katherine began volunteering in nearby public schools. In 2009, after completing a course of study in Teaching English as a Second Language, she secured a part-time teaching position with Anne Arundel Community College, Arnold, MD. She taught there from 2009-2011. In 2011, she began teaching Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten in a small private school in Fort Walton Beach, FL. She continued in that position until the move to Bedford County, Virginia. Katherine is a past member of The Officers’ Wives Club, Hill Air Force Base Thrift Shop Committee, and several church programs for women and children. She is an active member of the Friends of the Moneta/SML Library. She enjoys reading, paper crafts, and sewing.

Danny is our bushcraft specialist who can make fire, grow huge gardens, make clay out of mud & other amazing nature tricks. he has also been known to talk with a few 'wild turkeys'...

bio coming soon

Mrs. Sutherland is presently an 8th grade US history teacher at Storm Grove Middle School in Vero Beach, Florida and this is her 20th year of teaching. She holds a Florida State Professional Teaching Certificate in the areas of Social Studies and English grades 6-12. She also earned Endorsements in Reading and ESOL each entailing 300 credit hours of coursework in the state of Florida. Mrs. Sutherland graduated with a BA in American Studies from Washington College in Chestertown, MD and then added another year and a half to her undergraduate coursework record taking the required education classes to become a teacher. The education coursework included classes entitled: Early Childhood Psychology, Philosophy of Education, History of Education and Differentiated Instructional Practices in Teaching. Mrs. Sutherland also completed the required student teaching practicum and passed the required state tests in order to obtain a Maryland Teaching Certificate. She held several teaching positions including In Annapolis where she taught at a public high school and in Chestertown she taught at a public middle school. Additionally, she was hired at a private school that specializes in teaching students with learning differences, specifically dyslexia. In order to be hired at this private school, Mrs. Sutherland became a certified instructor of the Orton-Gillingham Method of teaching using a multi-sensory approach to instruction specifically in reading and writing, but it’s a method that can be applied to all subject areas. In Florida, Mrs. Sutherland was hired at a school that is run by the Division of Juvenile Justice and the local school board. There she gained experience working with troubled youth who had to work through a program in order to gain admittance back into public school. This position required Mrs. Sutherland to be a social studies teacher and a case manager of specific children. As a case manager, she worked individually with dysfunctional teens that had experienced a plethora of traumatic experiences. One of her many responsibilities as a case manager were to monitor students at a variety of community service activities. Prior to teaching where she presently has been for six years, Mrs. Sutherland taught at a Charter middle school for 5 years. For nearly 20 years Mrs. Sutherland has dedicated herself to educating America’s young people and, in addition to her teaching experience, she has gained work experience in both public and private school settings. Along with teaching, Mrs. Sutherland coaches rowing for the Vero Beach Rowing Club and has been with VBRC for 5 years. Prior to being a rowing coach, Mrs. Sutherland coached tennis for several middle schools that she taught in Florida. She is married to Adam and they have been together since 1993. They have one son, Angus who will be 12 in December and one brown dog, Sugaree, who is their 5 year old chocolate lab.

Daisy Dog is a two year old bloodhound. She is our SEAL dog! S.E.A.L stands for Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning. Having a therapy dog in a forest school environment will help foster the development of autonomous functioning and a better segregation of self/non self, which is the foundation of sensitivity in recognizing the needs and moods of other people. Research has shown that therapy animals can play important roles in the social, emotional and cognitive developmental growth in children. The human-animal bond can impact children in positive ways as current research shows therapy dogs can reduce stress physiologically (cortisol levels) and increase attachment responses that trigger oxytocin – a hormone that increases trust in humans.