Author: Shanon Brooks

A Thomas Jefferson Education: Part Two – Three Types of Schooling

C H A P T E R   T H R E E Three Systems of Schooling “Teaching, like farming and healing, is a cooperative art. Understanding this, Comenius in The Great Didactic again and again compares the cultivation of the mind with the cultivation of the field; so, too, Plato compares the teacher’s art with the physician’s.” […]

Monticello College Orchards Spring Work Party 2016

WE ARE ON OUR WAY! 65 fruit and nut trees have been purchased for an April delivery. We will plant all of these trees during our April 8-9, 2016 volunteer work party. We would love to have you join us! On April 8th at 9:00 am MT, we will begin planting trees and work both days […]

FIRST YEAR STUDENTS ARE SWARMING TO GET THE FULL TUITION SCHOLARSHIP

Enrollment is in full swing at Monticello College as first year students swarm to take advantage of the 100% full tuition scholarships. There is only 2 weeks left before the application deadline and to avoid a late fee. So if you know a student who should be attending Monticello College, get them to apply as […]

Many Business Leaders Prefer Liberal Arts

General Education versus Specialized Education In today’s high pressure, fast-paced America, the liberal arts get a bad rap. People who choose this line of study are often chided as being undecided about their future, not knowing “what they want to be when they grow up” and “Who’s going to hire a History major anyway?” Many […]

American Freedom Starts at Home

When I first met them, the Pattersons were just a typical low-middle-class California family. But they really cared about raising their children (3 adopted and 1 natural born) the right way and always had lots of questions and seemed to work hard at going the extra mile to learn or do their very best. Don’t […]

I Don’t Care Where My Kids Go To College

Huffington Post’s Catherine Pearlman posted a blog a couple of weeks ago and her message so resounded with me, I thought I would share the full text with you.              I’m going to say something a bit unheard of in modern times. My thoughts are anathema for most parents. But I’m done […]

Can Monticello College Accept GI Bill Funding?

Enrollment for the 2016 Monticello College academic year is filling up (remember, we run from mid-April to mid-November as an active farm campus). I have a number of potential students who have asked me about the GI Bill. I love working with former or active military personnel. They have a maturity about them that they have […]

Monticello College Trustee Awarded For Activism

Symbria Patterson is a charter member of the Board of Trustees for Monticello College and is one of my long time closest friends in the world. This article is a reprint from January 6, 2015.   SYMBRIA AND SARA PATTERSON WIN ACTIVISM AWARD Falls Church, VA—January 6, 2016—The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund is proud to announce […]

ONE-YEAR SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE AT MONTICELLO COLLEGE

  Do you know a student who wants to attend Monticello College but can’t afford the tuition? Monticello College is happy to announce an anonymous donor has just contributed 15 full-tuition first-year on campus scholarships for the 2016 academic year. This donor has two stipulations: These scholarships must be awarded to the first 15 eligible […]

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.