ENROLL WITH THRIVE APPALACHIA and Discover the Joy of Learning

Kayla started acting when she was seven years old and hasn’t been able to stop. She has since written and directed a few of her own plays as well, including a comical retelling of a Shakespeare classic, a short scene about the mysteries of the universe, and a play that was included in the 2024 THRIVE Fashion & Passion show.

  Paul Lundquist, our blacksmith teacher for the second year, has made his living as a blacksmith since 1973. His work began with small objects sold at craft fairs and progressed through large architectural ironwork commissions at Mountain Air and many other places including a major movie set. He has taught blacksmithing classes at Mayland Community College for 6 years as well as at his studio where he now makes specialty tools.

Izzy Miller is a lifelong student and educator with a passion for exploring what is possible through the medium of games. Has taught at Arthur Morgan School for seven years, where he co-developed a bakery business with students as well as designed  games for their classes. He continues to work with youth through The Hive and at Camp Celo, while also playing and developing games in their spare time.

Greetings Thrive kiddos, my name is Kristen Thompson and this year I

have the privilege of serving as your cake decorating instructor.

My background is in art education but I also have experience in the

world of cake decorating. I worked for several years as a commercial

decorator for some well known grocery retailers as well as doing

cakes out of my house.

I have made all types of delightful desserts from cupcakes to wedding

cakes and I can’t wait to share some of these skills with you wonderful

students.

Kayden, a 13-year-old, has been crafting organic and non-GMO chocolates for almost a year. In 2023, he joined THRIVE and was captivated by a chocolate-making class they were offering. Unfortunately, he missed those

classes, but he was inspired to make chocolate with his father at home. After numerous attempts at creating

various chocolate flavors, he presented a batch to one of THRIVE’s meetings and shared it with the students and staff. They were delighted with his creations. Afterwards, THRIVE offered him an opportunity to lead some

chocolate-making classes.  

Rob Shepherd is currently a Director of Production at Xbox Game Studios Publishing.   He has worked in the game industry as a Producer for the last 27 years in both development and publishing roles.   LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-shepherd-689a19/ 

Rob graduated from Texas State University in 1994 with a B.A of Music Performance and Sound Recording Technology and a minor in Electrical Engineering.  

 Sarah Cody is an artist, illustrator, and educator with a passion for creativity, nature, and storytelling. She teaches workshops that encourage curiosity, skill-building, and self-expression. With a background in art, human development, and nature journaling education, she loves helping students connect with the natural world through drawing and observation. Sarah has illustrated picture books and coloring books and designs artwork for stationery, fabric, home decor, wall murals and more. She lives on a homestead in Burnsville, where she homeschools her four daughters and finds inspiration in the changing seasons of the mountains.  

Tal Galton, naturalist and lead guide, is the owner of Snakeroot Ecotours. He has been guiding people to wild places for 30 years.

   Abby Hayes is a self-taught artist and jewelry designer  here in Burnsville, NC.
Abby loves to go treasure hunting in search of unusual materials for her jewelry. Her favorite finds come from nature and thrift stores. She combines natural stones, wood, seeds & nuts, bone and shell with old vintage jewelry parts to create her own original, up-cycled pieces of jewelry.
 Her funky handmade earrings can be found locally at The Colorful Gypsy in Burnsville and in Mars Hill at The Wild Violet.

THRIVE's teen is a knifemaker and founder of OBV Metalworks. This is how his passion for metalworking began. Six years ago, he became fascinated with wood and metalworking while playing Minecraft. It may sound unusual, but hewas amazed by the ability to create a sword from simple ingredients. He started restoring old axes and hammers he found at thrift stores. He kept up this hobby for a while, but he yearned to explore more metalworking techniques.

Recently, he had the opportunity to apprentice with a skilled knife maker, Chuck Schuette, and learned to create a stainless steel knife. His skills have since expanded to include carbon and stainless steel knives, and  has crafted at least 25 knives. He recently participated in the Gather Marker event in Burnsville and sold some of my knives. He hopes to attend more markets and continue expanding my knife-making endeavors.

Sarah House's grandmothers taught her to knit when she was about 8 and sparked   interested again in college. Now, using knitting as my fidget toy, if she need to be still, then she probably have knitting in her hands! Sarah loves color and texture and the feel of soft wool in her hands. She has three teenagers who refuse to learn. Knitting is always at her side, through all boys ball games, robotics practices, and music lessons.

Kevin Scanlon, a passionate singer and musician, has nurtured his love for music

since his childhood. His musical influences span a diverse range of genres,

including Old Time, Bluegrass, Early Country, and Celtic music, as well as

contemporary artists like Neil Young, Tom Waits, Bob Marley, and Jerry Garcia.

In 2005, Scanlon relocated to the area to delve deeper into the world of old time

banjo and the music it accompanies. Over the past two decades, he has honed his unique style of playing, singing, and songwriting. His performances often take

listeners on historical journeys through early country music and the music of North Carolina. Scanlon is a performer and educator of this music, using the instruments he plays to sing and compose songs. He is thrilled to have the opportunity to work with the kids at Thrive and help them form a string band.

   Olivier Calas was born and raised in France, I moved to the US when I was 25 and have been living in this country for the past 40 years or so. Photography has always been part of my life. From being taught good framing and use of ambient light at a young age by my father, to learning how to use a darkroom and taking several workshops in my twenties with news professionals and finally entering journalism as a photographer for the international news agency AFP.

My 35-year career led me through various positions from photo editor, photo coordinator for Latin America, director of multimedia where photography dominated and finally spending the last 10 years with AFP TV, filming and editing news videos.

While now retired, I continue to casually snap pictures with my phone whenever something visually strikes me.

Kat Turczyn has loved drawing and painting since she was 3 years old . While seated on the ground with a bunch of other 3-year-olds, watching a teacher show them how to draw a human figure at Humpty Dumpty Preschool, Kat recalls thinking, "I can do better than that."

Sean Alsup is an earthen oven builder/instructor, sourdough baker and wood fire chef living in South Toe, NC. While teaching culinary classes to inner city youth Sean found the power of education to be a form of deep healing.  With a passion for human connection and service work he found his calling in food.  After traveling the world he has found that there is truly no place like home.  Sean currently operates a cottage bakery from his home while selling his breads at Regional Farmers Markets.  He is currently building a bakery in Bakersville, NC. There he plans to open a cafe bakery with the long term goal to begin baking wood fired breads. 

Little Blackberry Creek pottery started with Morgan's mother Lynda Gayle in 2002 and Morgan started a few years later in 2006. Their pottery is heavily inspired by the natural world around them, especially their home mountains. They like their work to be both decorative and functional and believe everyone should be able to afford a beautiful piece of art. She's proud to have their work in several local galleries and in many privet collections, including those of former presidents, many local officials, and even the occasional pop star.  

Lifetime music composer dedicated to visualization of the music composed to take you on a journey and match the feeling of the music to enhance the videographer's vision. Shooting video from the day of analog tape through current digital acquisition to capture mountains, wilderness, river expeditions and motorsport events. Now shooting in 4k with a Canon 90-DSLR whilst editing media with a Mac Quad Core operating DaVinci Resolve in real-time. When it comes to shooting in the extremes, light and dependable equipment is a key element. Much experience shooting at high altitude in the Alaska Range, Cascades, and The High Sierras under well below freezing conditions throughout all seasons of the year. Photography published in magazines and music in film and tv production releases. Thirty five year veteran in studio design in technology and acoustics alongside music and video production. Audio-visual and design immersion classes available through our local Mayland College.