Author: Shanon Brooks

A Liberal Arts Degree Is More Valuable Than Learning Any Trade

56 year-old Rivik Ranadivé is an Indian businessman, engineer, author, speaker and philanthropist. Ranadivé is the founder and CEO of TIBCO, a multi-billion dollar real-timing computing  company, and is credited with digitizing Wall Street in the 1980s with his first company, Teknekron Software Systems.   I’ve made it a lifelong habit to do things I know nothing […]

Why the Universe Is Trying To Beat You Into Submission

This is an article written by my good friend Steve Palmer and is part of his series of articles entitled Inspirational Weekly. I have a bone to pick with William H. Murray and Paulo Coelho. Murray’s famous quote, written at the beginning of his mountain climbing expedition to the Himalayas, has been misleading adventurers since 1951: […]

ReValue America Tour in Southern California Begins in December

ReValue America Tour Schedule Update   Here is the latest schedule update: November 30 Date Open   December 3  7:00-9:00pm Conejo Valley Adult Education School 33 Greta Street Thousand Oaks, 91360 Contact: Joelle Mancuso 805-796-9333 joelletjed@gmail.com   December 4  1:00-3:00pm Escondido Learning Center 1441 Montiel Road, Ste 145 Escondido, 92026 Contact:  Tony Drown 760-716-7505 tdrown@mydehesa.org   […]

It’s Just A Game

…..or is it.  As of midnight last night, the United States Government has begun the process of shutting down due to lack of funds. The House is delaying  a routine funding approval to make a stand for the majority opinion of the American people, who want to shut down Obamacare. Yesterday President Obama stated that […]

Conscious Creator

My friend Kris Krohn has written a new book this year that is a MUST READ. It is called the Conscious Creator: 6 Laws For Manifesting Your Masterpiece Life. Steve Palmer sent me a copy of this book months ago when it first came out and it sat on my shelf until last week when […]

The Importance of Being in Over YOUR HEAD

  The following is an excerpt from the book  The Dream Giver by Bruce Wilkinson. I was eating lunch with a friend who has a PhD in leadership development.  I asked him, “Based on all your research and experience, what would you say is the most important secret to developing world-class leaders?” He put his fork […]

That Which is Seen and That Which is Not

The President of the United States believes that our role in the global community is to punish the Syrian government for military strikes on Syrian civilians resulting in hundreds of deaths and diminishing the Assad regime’s ability to deploy biological agents in the future. Whether or not it is the duty of the U.S. to […]

The Monticello College Campus Construction Progresses In Spite of the Recession

  A miracle occurred last month at the Campus of Monticello College. With a very small crew and limited resources, over 130 yards of concrete was poured for the foundation and floor for the 5,000 square foot commercial kitchen and dining hall. We are constructing all of the buildings on campus to last at least […]

Cloward-Piven Strategy

I can’t help it.  I seriously tried to make myself shorten this excellent 2005 article by Richard Poe but I can’t.  It is 4,500 words but very informative and explanatory of the times. RICHARD POE is an award-winning journalist and a New York Times-bestselling author. His journalistic writings focus on human rights, liberty, abuse of power and the rule of law. His fiction writing is mainly […]

The Present Crisis

This week’s post is the Monticello College Hymn or official poem.  Although written 169 years ago, the nature of humanity does not change and the emotional and spiritual state of human beings as a whole rarely changes–which makes this poem as applicable today as it was a century and a half ago. The Present Crisis […]

Krislyn Elliott & Lauren Swanepoel

Krislyn Elliott and Lauren Swanepoel act more like sisters than moms as they take really slow walks through the woods together, looking at and taking pictures of every plant they see & wishing they could remember their names and uses more thoroughly. They also like concocting herbal teas, salves, tinctures and strange drinks.

Krislyn is from Utah and has loved learning about plants since an unusually cool high school biology teacher took his classes on neighborhood botany walks. She has always been fascinated and constantly amazed at the power and beauty of plants.

Lauren is from South Africa, she and her family emigrated to Utah almost 10 years ago. They have fallen in love with the area and know more about this state & the great places to explore here than most Utah natives.

We both feel strongly about taking care of our families with natural methods and the abundant medicine we have growing right around us. We are trying to learn as much as we can about our magical local plants and are looking forward to sharing some of our favorites with you.

William DeMille

Director of Georgic Develeopment

William DeMille is a lifelong vegetable farmer. He studied Horticulture and Agronomy at Northwest Missouri University, Maryville. He holds a certificate in aquaponic engineering and production from Cornell University, NY, and another from GrowHaus Aquaponics in Denver, CO. He also studied soil regeneration and is a graduate of Dr. Elaine’s Soil Food Web School. He is the Director of Georgic Development for The Center for American Legacy Studies.

William is a farm consultant establishing several agricultural startups since 2005 in Missouri, Oregon, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada and he currently manages 2500 acres of grassland for the Ruby Mountain Foods Company.

His latest venture is a market gardening school called Georgic Revolution where he teaches a 17-week course onsite in Nevada covering soil health and vegetable production without the use of fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, etc. and where he operated a soil lab.

William lives with his wife Vernie in the snow capped mountains of Northern Nevada.

Lloyd Nelson

World Renown BD Expert

Lloyd Nelson has been practicing the art of Biodynamic (BD) Agriculture for over twenty years. He is a BD preparation maker, builder, artist, farmer, arborist, BD educator & consultant. He is co-founder of Biodynamic Source – a Colorado based non-profit specializing in high potency BD preparations – and he owns and operates a Biodynamic spray, fertilizer and consultation service. He has worked with small and large scale farms, vineyards, and orchards to transition to sustainable Biodynamic land management and Demeter BD Certification.

Vern Cox, PhD

Educator

Vern Cox is married to Joyce Christensen and they have 8 children. He has 3 earned degrees, a BA in psychology, and both a Master’s degree and a Ph.D. in marriage and family therapy.

He has had a diverse and interesting career that started with the Bureau of Land Management, followed by a stint as a Learning Disabilities teacher, and finally a marriage and family therapist, working his way up to executive director of the High Country Counseling and Resource Centers that served two counties in Wyoming.

Dr. Cox served for several years on the board of a charter school. Dr. Cox remains heavily involved in his community and the home schooling movement.

He has extensive background in marriage and family counseling, having held a number of administrative positions during his first career. He holds a BA in Psychology and both a Masters and PhD in Marriage and Family Therapy. He lives with his wife and several married children on their multi-generation farm in Southern Utah.

Joseph Lofthouse

Educator

Joseph adopted the principles of landrace gardening in response to the harsh growing conditions in a high-altitude, short-season, desert garden. Instead of relying on expensive poisons, labor, and materials to coddle the plants, he encourages genetic diversity, cross-pollination, and survival of the fittest, allowing the plants to adapt themselves to the current and ever-changing ecosystem, thus simplifying gardening and seed saving. Joseph is the author of Landrace Gardening: Food Security Through Biodiversity and Promiscuous Pollination. Joseph loves eating, farming, swimming, hot-springs, sunbathing, bird-watching, running, yoga, leggings, kilts, playing guitar, singing, and living habitually barefoot.

Dan Brooks

Educator

Dan Brooks was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. During his first career, he spent 20 years working in and managing high-end restaurants and golf courses including extensive banquet/special events services and ice sculptures.

For the past 23 years, Dan has been a successful entrepreneur and family business owner in Las Vegas. He and his wife have 4 children and 11 grandchildren. He serves as a trustee for The Center for American Legacy Studies.

Shanon Brooks, PhD

Director

Shanon Brooks is the director of The Center for American Legacy Studies, an institution dedicated to helping families embrace and incorporate the Five American Ideals; Georgics, Liber, Providence, Public Virtue, and Liberty into their lives and communities. America exists because of Americans. Americans are the beneficiaries of a peculiar culture and way of living.

Over the past 75 years, that culture and way of life have been lost. Restore that culture and Americans will rebuild America to once again be worthy of John Winthrop’s 1630 admonition, “For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.”

Brooks has been a leader in alternative higher education for over 30 years, and is the author of two books: AMERICAN: Killing the American Dream and A Thomas Jefferson Education for Teens.

Dr. Brooks is a veteran of military service in the United States Submarine Fleet and holds a Bachelor’s degree in business administration, a Master’s degree in education, and a Ph.D. in constitutional law.

He and his wife Julia reside on the 80-acre conference facility of The Center for American Legacy Studies.