SPEAKERS
Note: Speakers will be updated over the next few days to reflect the final presenters.
Darryl Patton
Darryl Patton has been hunting, gathering and working with medicinal plants for the past 38 years on Lookout Mountain in the Southern Appalachians. Darryl is an ND as well as a Master Herbalist and brings many years of experience to the field of alternative medicine. Known for his easy-going approach towards teaching the identification and uses of medicinal plants, Darryl has been called a walking encyclopedia of herbal folklore.
For 13 years, Darryl was privileged to spend thousands of hours studying under the late A. L. "Tommie" Bass, one of the last of the old mountain herb doctors.
Known internationally among herbalists as well as the common folk living near Lookout Mountain, Alabama, Tommie Bass used his God-given ability and vast knowledge of medical herbs to help thousands of people from all walks of life.
Olga Katic
Meet Olga Katic - Our Keynote Speaker)
I grew up mushroom hunting with my relatives in Bosnia and Hercegovina. When our parents were at work, our grandma watched my sister and I and we had the freedom of being in thewoods all day long. At one moment we would be digging up leeches out of the fresh water welland feeding them to chickens, and the next moment, we would get chased by grandma’s rooster. But we also spent a lot of time picking boletes, milk mushrooms, and other varieties of mushrooms. We’d bring them to grandpa, and he would get rid of the ones he thought were not edible, the rest we would cook on the wood stove and eat them.
Now, I am the proud owner of Mushroom Mountain, and have an amazing team working with me. We produce mushroom spawn for many different edible and medicinal varieties.
We also make several different medicinal mushroom extracts and medicinal mushroom honeys under the name Mycomatrix. Mushroom Mountain also runs a Wild Mushroom Food Safety Certification Program. This program was accepted by Health Departments of 7 states and counting, and also endorsed by the FDA.
In my free time, I love to be in the woods, picking mushrooms and wild plants, and of course taking tons of pictures of anything I find. I am fascinated by nature in every possible aspect.
Becky Bishop
Becky is a seventh generation Alabamian, descended from pioneer-farmers.
Her passions are herbalism, American history and genealogy. She first learned of medicinal herbs from her grandparents, Gary and Janet Smith of Ashland, AL in 2009. The following year, she attended her first plant walk with Darryl Patton and her interest in herbalism has continued to grow.
Becky is a graduate of Jacksonville State University with a Bachelor of Science and is a current student in the Deep South Center for Herbal Studies, where she studies under Master Herbalist Darryl Patton.
Matt St. John is a Naturopathic Doctor and herbalist, founder of St. John's Nutrition, and natural medicine researcher. He enjoys spending his time educating others about health and wellness through conducting seminars, writing, participating in radio shows, and making television appearances. He travels frequently worldwide hunting medicine and researching indigenous medicine practices of Native Americans, Amazonians, Latin Americans, and Europeans with his wife Debra, who is a Registered Nurse and research scientist. He lives with his beautiful family in the Lookout Mountain region of Alabama and has committed himself to making health and wellness easy to understand while also being readily available to everyone regardless of their economic status, race, culture, or beliefs.
At 16 years of age, Matt met folk herbalist Tommie Bass who lived only a half hour from his home. Upon discovering that Matt had a myriad of health issues, Tommie assisted him in getting well so that he could start a new life focused on health and wellness. This new life quickly became engrossed in learning about and incorporating natural medicine not only into his life but helping others find wellness through natural medicine. Matt would visit Tommie often where he began to learn about specific formulations and concepts of natural medicine, and this is where our story began. From this time, Matt met Tommie’s understudy and friend, the renowned herbalist Darryl Patton, and trained under various wellness experts and practitioners for decades. Matt has opened over 13 health food stores and clinics across the Southeast, has taught hundreds of classes across the world, conducts weekly health and wellness radio shows, has traveled extensively around the globe studying natural medicine, and is the founder of St. John’s Nutrition in Oxford Alabama, the nation's only non-profit natural products company and healing center.
Matt St. John
Suzanne Shires
Suzanne Upton is a North Carolina native homesteader and herbalist, and calls the Blue Ridge her home. She grew up in a large family with acres of gardens, preserving food as naturally as possible. She began canning with her mother at seven years old and learned sustainability from ‘mountain folk’ grandparents.
Being among the first generation in her family to be born in a hospital, she grew up with Granny-women who found ways to heal from the plants and remedies of Appalachia.
Her homestead contains heirloom vegetables, herbs gardens and fruit orchards for a sustainable lifestyle. Over the years she began a serious education into herbalism and nutrition, including foraging wild foods and medicines, fermenting, winemaking, finding nutrition and flavor in wild foods, as well as homemade vinegars, seasonings and herbal remedies.
She readily passes on her foraging, harvesting and preserving abilities, teaching others about how to find foods and medicinal plants in nature and maintaining health with diet and herbal remedies.
Phillip Winter
Philip lives in Canton Georgia with his beautiful wife and daughter. Philip has been interested in natural medicines for many years. He has a Bachelors of Science in Alternative Medicine from Everglades University in Florida.
Philip completed 2 years at Botanologos School of Herbal Studies and and Herbal Basics course at the Human Path. He is currently in his fourth year studying under Darryl Patton and the Deep South Center for Herbal Studies.
Philip likes to experiment with different types of fermentation and is a certified mushroom forager, a mushroom cultivator and has taught Wild edibles classes at SARCRAFT in Canton, Georgia.
Philip enjoys growing edible and medicinal plants.
Joey Nofsinger
Joey Noffsinger trained and has worked as a Registered Nurse for the last 16 years in various clinical and administrative settings including Neuro ICU, Dialysis and Psychiatric modalities.
His love for alternative and functional health led him to a plant walk where he met Darryl Patton and is now beginning his third year studying at the Deep South Center for Herbal Studies.
Last year he partnered with a local small scale hemp farm and has recently started an LLC called the Fruited Root where he hopes to bring small batch herbal based products to functional health clinics. He lives in Beacon TN with his beatiful wife Mende and their two girls Sailor and Sadie.