Author: Shanon Brooks

MATH AGAINST TYRANNY

By Will Hively The following article is taken from the 1996 November issue of Discover Magazine. We would like to thank Discover for the great research and writing that went into this article. To read more great articles from Discover, visit them on the web at www.discover.com. I CAN’T ENCOURAGE YOU ENOUGH TO TAKE THE […]

4th of July

July 4th Celebration Address 2020 On the 4th of July, Monticello College will hold a sunrise service beginning at 5:50am. Following this devotional, the college president will read the short speech below and offer a showing of the David Barton video: Sands of Time. On this day of celebration, it is customary to recite some […]

Up From Slavery

Booker T. Washington was nine years old when he was freed from slavery. His book “Up From Slavery,” gives great insight into the process of going from the dependence of slavery to the responsibility of freedom. He highlights the human degradation caused by slavery; not only the obvious humiliation of mind and spirit, but also […]

The Hardest School

The Boomer and Xer Generation’s search for the “quick fix” has done much to cripple the Millennial and Homeland generations, who I fear have weak mooring in the ancient bulwark of principle. The older generations have taught them to desire things from an entitlement perspective, which is always prefaced with an “I deserve” or “you […]

America’s Cultural Revolution

Beginning in the late 60’s through 1976, China experienced the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution that literally transformed the country, removing the last remnants of traditional Chinese culture and social structure. Mao, the architect of the revolution, working against his own party, declared that “to rebel is justified.” He incited a typical soviet style “class struggle” […]

National Debt Isn’t $23 Trillion, It’s $122 Trillion

In my 2019 book AMERICAN:Killing the American Dream, I stated on page 210, that the national debt was at least $100 trillion. The article below by Mark Tapscott, confirms that number. Read this article to better understand why the government has a different number for this very important issue. WASHINGTON—America’s current national debt stands at […]

New 2020 Hire at Monticello College

Joseph Bjork’s interests include philosophy, blacksmithing, economic independence, public policy, the relationship between culture and politics, the history of technology, making tools from scratch, flint knapping, pre-Columbian farming practices, food staples, natural building, and appropriate technology, amid an extensive and constantly expanding list. Joseph and Aubrey Bjork have four children, no farm animals (yet), and […]

This is Not a Day Care

Dr. Everett Piper, president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University, posted an open letter to the university student body on OWU’s website in 2015 that quickly went viral. The letter ended with these words, which eventually became the basis his new book: “This is not a day care. This is a university.” Not a Day Care: The […]

2020: The Centenary of the Most Important Breakthrough in the History of Economics

By Mark Hendrickson January 2020 Mark Hendrickson is an economist who recently retired from the faculty of Grove City College, where he remains a fellow for economic and social policy at the Institute for Faith and Freedom. This essay was written and published in the Epoch Times. In 1920, Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises published […]

THIS IS A REPUBLIC – Use It

School is wrapping up for us at Monticello College (we run from mid-April to mid-November). We thought that you might be interested in reading a few essays written by our students. What follows is an essay written by Oliver Merten – a 2nd year student from Oregon. Some people consider this nation to be a […]

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.