Oglebay Institute's

• Greg Park Mountain Nature Camp Director

A native of Ripley, West Virginia, Greg Park has been teaching about nature and history for over 35 years. Greg first became interested in wildlife and the outdoors through his participation in the Boy Scouts of America where he reached the rank of Eagle.

He received his Bachelors Degree from Concord College in Athens, WV and his Masters Degree from West Virginia University in Biology Education. Greg has served as a swimming coach at the US Coast Guard Training Center in Cape May, New Jersey where he studied, taught, and lived in one of the premier birding locations in the world.

Moving to the Wheeling area, Greg has worked at Oglebay Institute for more than 15 years. Currently, Greg serves as Associate Director of Environmental Education. A highlight of his professional career was his participation as a Re-Enactor Specialist in the film The Patriot.

Though teaching is his passion, Greg has also completed important scientific research including the discovery of a new species of troglobite cave beetle named in his honor- Pseudanopthalmus parki.
Greg spends the last weeks of summer working with young people as the senior naturalist at Junior Nature Camp.

• Bill Beatty Program Director and  Botany

Bill Beatty is the longest serving naturalist in the history of Oglebay Institute. His work for the Institute started in 1972 and today he serves as a consultant on curriculum design and professional development.

Bill graduated from West Liberty State College with a degree in biology. In addition to his work with Oglebay Institute, he founded Wild and Natural, a nature education and photography company. Thousands of his screech owl, insect, spider, and patterns in nature photos appear in the world’s top magazines, books, and field guides. Bill accompanies his photography expertise as an acclaimed nature writer.

Bill’s additional teaching experience includes serving as an instructor for West Virginia Northern Community College, West Liberty State College, Elderhostel, and the West Virginia Governor’s Office of The Center for Professional Development. He’s also been a bird and wildflower instructor at the WVDNR’s Blackwater Falls Wildflower Pilgrimage since 1977 and is a guest lecturer, teacher, and presenter at sites and schools across the region.

Bill’s research focuses on population dynamics and color phases of the eastern screech owl, Otus asio; he holds a Master-Personal bird banding license with the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

In addition to recruiting the MNC’s expert instructors and designing the camp curriculum, Bill’s fondness for the camp menu ensures that all plates are clean after each meal.

Staff Instructors

• Allison Cusick Botany

Allison was raised in the uppper Ohio Valley of Ohio and West Virginia. Allison was fortunate to have Forest Buchanan as his teacher and mentor. Forest introducted him to Junior Nature Camp and, in 1957, to Mountain Camp. Allison received his degrees in English and Botany from The Ohio State and Kent State universities. He taught at Kent State for a few years as well as working for the Ohio Biological Survey. In 1978 Allison joined the Ohio Department of Natural Resources in their new endangered species program. He worked for ODNR for more than 20 years. He retired as Chief Botanist in 2002.

Allison has botanized throughout the United States and Canada and has collected more than 36,000 plant specimens. He has discovered two new species and hundreds of new state records. Allison has authored more than 50 scientific articles on the flora of Ohio and the eastern United States. He also has co-authored three botanical books on the flora of Ohio. His most recent book is the Seventh Catalog of the Vascular Plants of Ohio (The Ohio State University Press, 2002) which he co-edited with T. Cooperrider and J. Kartesz. Allison received the Osborn Award for lifetime achievement in Ohio biology in 1998 from the Ohio Biological Survey. He presently is a Visiting Scholar of the Museum of Biological Diversity at the The Ohio State University. He also is a Research Associate of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, PA.

Apart from biology, Allison is a lifelong stamp collector, active in many philatelic organizations. He currently is a national stamp show judge. Allison enjoys traveling and music and theater, interests which he shares with his wife Carol Shelton. They live in Columbus, Ohio.

• Cindy SlaterBird Study

Born in Wheeling, West Virginia, Cindy Slater grew up on a farm in nearby Ohio. Her parents, Carl and Juanita, provided her with frequent opportunities to learn about and appreciate all aspects of nature, especially avian behavior and identification.

Cindy received her Bachelor of Science degree from Seton Hill College in Pennsylvania. She expanded her knowledge of birds during forays of the Brooks Bird Club by working on study plots whose data was submitted to the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

For a number of years Cindy has been a bird leader at the spring West Virginia Wildflower Pilgrimage. She has taught bird identification at Oglebay Institute's Junior Nature Camp and has also been the Naturalist for Camp Presmont in Ohio.

Currently Cindy works as the Assistant Food Service Director of Seton Hill University and resides in Scottdale, Pa.

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• Tom PearsonTrees

Tom Pearson graduated from the University of California Pennsylvania with his Bachelors and Masters degrees in Elementary Education and received a Principal’s Certificate from Duquesne University. Since 1968, he has been a 4th, 5th, and 6th grade teacher with the Franklin Regional School District in Pennsylvania. Tom has served as the District’s Chair of Elementary Science Curriculum, Coach of the Ecology and Envirothon Teams, and Instructor for both St. Vincent and Seton Hill Colleges.

The natural world has always exerted an inexorable pull on Tom Pearson. When he was 12 years old, his father built a crude clubhouse so he could teach “Nature School” to the neighborhood kids. In Junior High School, Tom was terrified when he was called down to the office. To his great relief, he found that the office staff needed a naturalist to identify a flock of birds devouring the ornamental crab apples outside the window. In High School, he sold students insect collections required by the biology department. While Tom was student teaching, his sympathetic teachers were kind enough to allow him to pursue his passion for nature, and Tom taught a unit on animal tracks and ornithology.

Rachel Carson nicely sums up his feelings about the natural world in her quote: “Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts”.

• Mary Grey and Larry HelgermanBird Study

Mary lives in Wheeling, WV where she has been a teacher for the past 24 years. She serves on the Brooks Bird Club's board of directors. She has attended Oglebay Institute's Mountain Nature Camp since the 1980's. Mary learned many of her birding skills while attending Mountain Camp, and while doing study plots and point counts with the Brooks Bird Club.

Larry is the coordinator of PA's Important Bird Area (IBA) 80 in Washington County. He was instrumental in the research and application process that qualified this area as an IBA. He is the coordinator/compiler of the Buffalo Creek Christmas Bird Count for The National Audubon Society. He is also collecting data for the PA Breeding Bird Atlas project.

Both Mary and Larry are members of the Brooks Bird Club and volunteer as trip leaders at the WV Wildflower Pilgrimage. They also lead outings for the Three River Bird Club and several other nature organizations. They are volunteers for Oglebay Institute and members of the Environmental Education Committee at the Schrader Center.

• Sue StudlarBryology

Dr. Sue Moyle Studlar has taught botany for over 30 years. For the past 15 years she has taught Plant Diversity, Plant Geography, and Plant Anatomy at West Virginia University as a Visiting Associate Professor. She has led many public moss walks, most recently (past two years) for the West Virginia Wildflower Pilgrimage. Dr. Studlar is looking forward to teaching the Mosses class at Oglebay Mountain Nature Camp for the first time. Her students will learn how to tell mosses (and liverworts) from look-alikes (including lichens and "fern allies"), recognize species by "gestalt" and habitat, and discuss the critical but often overlooked ecological roles of mosses in forests, meadows, and wetlands. The class will also consider human uses of mosses: traditional, current, and future.

Dr. Studlar graduated from Carleton College in Minnesota with a B.A. in Biology, and was inspired to specialize in mosses by a field botany course in the North Woods. She earned a Ph.D. in botany at the University of Tennessee (Knoxville), where she studied bryophytes under Aaron J. Sharp. Dr. Studlar has spent most of her professional career in or near the Appalachians. Her first job was at Wellesley College in Massachusetts where she taught Basic Horticulture and Plant Biology. At Centre College (Danville, Kentucky) she became an Associate Professor of Biology and maintained an active research program at the University of Virginia's Mountain Lake Biological Station. Her research projects (and publications) at Mountain Lake included studies of : host specificity of epiphytic bryophytes, bryophytes in bird nests, bryophytes and slime molds, and trampling effects on bryophytes. She also studied the bryophytes of the New River Gorge of Kentucky and compiled a checklist of Kentucky bryophytes. While at Centre, Dr. Studlar switched to Adjunct status to meet the challenges of raising two boys; since then, she has also held Visiting positions at Oklahoma State University and West Virginia University.

In West Virginia Dr. Studlar's collaborative projects have included: effects of stream acidification on bryophytes, a checklist of West Virginia bryophytes, and moss harvest in West Virginia (the stripping of forest mosses from logs and rocks for use in arts and crafts). She and Elizabeth Byers reported the re-discovery (by E.B.) of dung moss (Splachnum ampullaceum) in West Virginia. Also (with two WVU engineering students) she reported on the survival of peat mosses (Sphagnum) launched into the stratosphere by two WVU engineering students. Dr. Studlar curates bryophytes at the WVU Herbarium, and has helped develop a Plant Conservatory (Teaching Collection) and Native Wildflower Garden for the Department of Biology.

Dr. Studlar lives in Morgantown, WV with her husband Don. She enjoys hiking, nature photography, and gardening. Her extensive summer travels have included visits to their fledged, adventurous sons in Vermont, El Salvador, and Japan. She has also studied plants abroad, including in Australia (as a Visiting Fellow at Australian National University) and Saskatchewan (as a Visiting Research Scholar at the University of Regina). Last summer she toured 20 botanic gardens in northern Europe and Japan and also climbed Mount Fuji. Dr. Studlar is a plant enthusiast who enjoys teaching, especially about the elfin world of the forest floor.

• Lenny MuniAstronomy

Currently in his 35th year with the Berea City School District, Lenny teaches general science and astronomy at the high school level and also directs the School District's planetarium. Lenny serves as Director of Camp Mi-Bro-Be, the Berea City School District's camping, nature, and outdoor education program.

In 1976, Lenny began attending Junior Nature Camp as the Counselor In Training director, and except for three years, has been C.I.T. director through the present- a span of more than 28 years. Lenny is an invited presenter for various nature organizations around the region including the Brooks Bird Club. His passion for teaching usually includes morning sessions on astronomy or orienteering, and Lenny is famous for his talented singing and guitar playing around the campfire.

• Jane HaugerKitchen Director

Jane Hauger, a Wheeling, WV native, spent her formative years attending Terra Alta Mountain Nature Camp exploring the West Virginia Highlands. Her love for the land and people caused her to stay. Jane is a year round resident of Terra Alta, spending the school year as a Kindergarten teacher at Terra Alta Elementary School. Her passion for preparing homemade meals from fresh, locally grown produce and constant baking of fresh breads and desserts are one of the many highlights of the Terra Alta experience.

Guest Instructors

• Bill Yenke Mammals

Dr. William Yenke has taught the mammal sessions at the Oglebay Institute Mountain Camp for ten years. His sessions stress the evolutionary history of mammals, the understanding of the descriptive and often humorous Latin names, and the identification of small local mammals. Live traps are used in catch, identify, and release field studies at Lake Terra Alta and in local population estimation. Although currently retired on a small farm in Texas, Dr. Yenke travels to the Mountain Nature Camp each summer out of sheer love for the camp and its students. He earned his undergraduate degree in Mathematics from Alaska Methodist University in 1965.

In the 1980s, Dr. William Yenke researched the possible existence of the Florida Panther (Felis concolor coryi) in Louisiana to meet Masters Degree requirements at Louisiana Tech University, and wrote a history of the animal in that state. His Doctoral research at Clemson University included an electron microscope morphometric analysis of micrographs from torpid deermouse pineal gland cells cultured and not cultured in norepinephrine. Ninety-two variables were analyzed and presented in a Ph.D. thesis and the degree earned in 1989. Dr. Yenke has taught biology courses at Clemson University, Erskine College and Limestone college, including human anatomy and physiology, vertebrate zoology, histology, genetics, ecology, and general biology. Prior to graduate study in biology, Dr. Yenke was for 20 years an officer in the USAF and piloted a variety of aircraft from airborne radar platforms to B-52's to bush piloting small aircraft in Alaska on skis and floats. He is a graduate of the USAF Instrument Instructor School and commanded the Base Instrument School and taught instrument flying at Otis AFB in Massachusetts. As Major Yenke, he completed two combat tours in Vietnam and was awarded the Purple Heart, Vietnam Cross of Gallantry, Two Distinguished Flying Crosses, and 19 Air Medals, among others.

Dr. Yenke satisfied a long fascination with sailing in 1979 by sailing a 45 foot ketch with the owner/builder from Tampa Bay to England. The two tired sailors arrived in the middle of the Great Fastnet Race Force 10 Storm Disaster and narrowly avoided the loss of the boat. Dr. Yenke's other hobbies include gardening, hiking, bowhunting, fishing, and promoting the understanding of evolutionary biological theory as the basic underpinning of all life.

• Zachary Loughman Herpetology & Astacology

Zachary Loughman spent his childhood in search of salamanders and snakes in Marshall County, West Virginia. Because the natural history of Appalachian fauna is his passion, he is still chasing these herps along with any other enigmatic animal that crosses his path.

Zac received a bachelors degree in Biology from West Liberty State College and a masters degree in Biology from Marshall University. While studying herps at Marshall, Zac's curiosity led him down a path to astacology; the study of freshwater crayfishes. He hasn't looked back since, adding crayfish state records to multiple state lists and working on projects describing crayfish species, all the while still working on projects elucidating reptile and amphibian life histories in Appalachia. Zac's research on herps and crayfish has been published in journals and presented at several scientific meetings.

Upon completion of his master's degree, Zac returned to Wheeling and worked for Oglebay Institute as a Natural History Research Specialist. He also spearheaded Schrader Center's Natural History Research Program, and, currently Zac is the Natural History Research Coordinator for Oglebay institute and Natural History Research Specialist for West Liberty State College, where he instructs environmental and biological classes for the college.

Zac spends his summers researching crayfish conservation biology projects across the mid-Atlantic region and teaching natural history weekends and Mountain Camp classes at Terra Alta. When he's not in the field, he's usually day dreaming about his next field excursion.

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