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 was raised around gardening and a self-reliant mindset, introduced to plant medicine by her grandparents. Shortly after graduating with her Bachelor’s Degree from Jacksonville State University in 2010 she attended her first plant walk with Darryl Patton, which she says “stoked an inextinguishable fire in my soul.” Becky earned her Herbalist I and Herbalist II certifications from Darryl’s Deep South Center for Herbal Studies, where she continues to study. She is also currently studying in the Doctor of Naturopathy (N.D.) program with Maggie Conklin at Heirloom Academy of Healing Arts.
At Darryl’s encouragement, Becky began taking on a teaching role in 2018. “I never saw myself being a teacher but I have enjoyed growing into it. I especially love teaching percolation tincturing and enjoy the feedback from students who, like me years ago, felt too intimidated to tackle the process. I hope to give people the confidence to step into the challenging parts of medicine making.”
Becky enjoys how herbal medicine can combine centuries of effective, natural remedies with scientific research and modern medicine. “I thrive on being able to identify, forage and grow the herbs I use and then see those remedies work for myself and others.”
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.
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.
Renee Pace
Renee Pace is a native of Western North Carolina, raised in a close-knit rural family where she learned of living off the land, self-reliance, and faith. She remains true to this way of life, maintaining a lifelong connection to the land that shaped her.
She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Bachelor of Science in Art Education, which blend creativity, design, and teaching into her herbal craft—infusing handmade remedies with beauty, intention, and an educational touch.
Passionate about Appalachian traditions, she is skilled in soap and salve making, herbal
medicine, gardening, food preservation, and certified in mushroom foraging.
Her small business, “True To My Roots,” offers grass-fed and finished, tallow-based personal
care products featuring locally grown or foraged Southeastern herbs—from pine resin chest rubs to mushroom body butters.
Renee has been a student at the Deep South Center for Herbal Studies in Mentone, Alabama
since 2022. Her work honors Appalachian heritage, celebrates God’s natural medicine, and invites others to simpler living.
Jenise Smith
In 2018 after a serious health scare, I turned to herbal medicine. That was the beginning of an exciting new journey and passion!
I began my educational journey by attending conferences and taking online classes. Then I enrolled in Darryl Patton's Deep South Center of Herbal Studies as well as enrolling in an online clinical herbalist program.
After 2 years of traveling from Kentucky to Alabama for classes, we relocated to Clay County, Alabama. I am now retired and focus my time on developing our homestead and teaching herbal classes.
The silver lining to what began as a horrible health scare is that I have fallen in love with the world of medicinal plants. And it has become my passion to share my knowledge and experiences with anyone who is curious about the amazing capabilities of plants.
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Anne-Marie Bilella
Anne-Marie Bilella is the Forager Chick at Bella Vista Farm in Georgia. She is certified as an Herbalist, Wild Mushroom Forager and Seller and instructor for the Wild
Mushroom Safety Course with Mushroom Mountain.
Anne-Marie creates her own products with her Forager Chick line and teaches homesteaders and preppers about herbal medicine, mushrooms and wild plant
identification in person and online at the Forager’s Academy.
She is a homesteader, survivalist in-training, author of Wild Eating with the Forager Chicks , Forager Chick’s Wild Mushroom Journal and Value-Add Yourself
Find her online at www.foragerchick.com on IG @foragerchick on YouTube
@foragerchick
Jennifer Dillman
Dr. Jennifer Dillman is a Traditional Naturopath, Functional Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, and Functional Blood Chemistry Analyst with more than a decade of clinical practice.
Based in Southern Indiana, she works with clients nationwide through her practice, Dillman Wellness, specializing in cellular healing, metabolic resilience, and detoxification. She has been teaching the Six Doctors framework in workshops and community settings for years and is a frequent presenter on functional health, naturopathic philosophy, and the intersection of ancestral wisdom and modern clinical science.
Later this year she will release two books: The Six Doctors: Ancient Wisdom, Timeless Healing, and the God Who Designed It All, co-authored with her husband Denny, and What They Called Quackery: The Suppressed History of American Medicine.
Dr. Jennifer Dillman, ND, FNTP
Amber Leckenby
I am a Registered Nurse, since 1998, and started working in Correctional/Prison Dialysis in 1999. I am now an Executive Vice President/Chief Operating Officer for dialysis, also known at work as the crunchy executive or crunchy lady.
I married my high school sweetheart and best friend in 1993. We have two amazing children and two beautiful grandchildren. We both grew up in Washington State and moved to Alabama in 2009.
We have a nice homestead and raise dairy goats, chickens, ducks, turkeys, bees, fruits, vegetables, and medicinal plants. We love to hike and forage for food and medicinal plants.
I have been studying with Darryl’s class since 2017. My initial interest was to be able to identify and use plants growing around me. I have learned so much more than that and now have an “herb family” as part of my life. I enjoy helping others that need/want help using natural remedies for ailments as well as making everyday products like toothpaste, soap, deodorant, lotions/creams, salves, and cosmetics.
Star Weems
Starr Weems grew up in The Shoals, surrounded by miles of TVA land to play on. With a gardener mother and a hunter-forager father, her fascination with plants began early and has shaped both her creative and professional life.
Starr is a teacher, an herbalist and an artist. Her work has been exhibited at Kentuck Museum, Lowe Mill and Huntsville Museum of Art (among others) and has been featured in publications throughout the southeast. An avid hiker and backpacker, she brings her love of the natural world into the classroom at Ardmore High School, where she has been teaching for 25 years.
More than a decade ago, Starr founded an award-winning outdoor education program in Limestone County. She guides public school teens as they tend a native plant garden and explore herbal medicine, food preservation, natural dyes and traditional arts. She organizes a wilderness first aid program, helping young people build confidence and capability outdoors.
Starr is currently in her fourth year of study with Darryl Patton at Deep South, continuing her studies in Southern folk medicine.
Kathy and Jeff Terrell
Kathy Terrell, LMT Licensed Massage Therapist. Has worked with Jeff in their physical therapy clinic
and then other physical therapy settings from 2000 to 2010. She obtained her LMT in 2011. She has
owned Selah Therapeutic Massage in Cullman, AL since 2011. She is certified in Lymphatic Drainage
Massage as well as Therapeutic Cupping. She attends multiple manual therapy courses per year as well as nutritional CEUs. Further, she is of the “carnivore” diet paradigm. And with good reason. Attend the class and find out about carnivore.
Jeff Terrell, DNM, RPT. Physical Therapist, Doctor of Natural Medicine. Has worked in the hospital
settings since 1991, graduated with a Masters in Physical Therapy in 1999, then started private practice outpatient clinic with Kathy. Moved towards independent therapy and natural/herbal medicine practice over the next few years.
Presently working in the home health arena. Carnivore mostly paradigm. We both started together in our outpatient physical therapy clinic, then moved on to individual settings over the years. We both have studied and understood the need for natural, traditional medicine practices while straying away from modern medical practices.
We have spent the last 4 plus years studying under
Darryl Patton with his herbal studies group in Mentone. This is where we have learned what to look for, how to look for, what to utilize, how to utilize, how to determine what is needed as far as herbal and
natural medicine. We apply what we have learned from our “modern medical” education and protocols
while inserting the more functional “traditional medical” protocols that have been around for millennia.
Dr. JoAnne Smith
Dr. JoAnne Smith is a Board Certified Family Physician from Andalusia, AL with over 30 years of practice in clinic, hospital, nursing homes, hospice and outpatient mental facilities. She is on the teaching staff of Alabama Osteopathic Medical School in Dothan and has taught many students as well as nursing and nurse practitioner students. She is Chief of Staff at Andalusia Health in Andalusia, AL.
Dr. Smith has always had an interest in Natural, Alternative and Complementary Medicine which has led her to become a Certified Clinical Herbalist. She also teaches and lectures to the local community, at herbal conferences and to her students.
Dr. Smith has always said that she wears many hats but the hat she loves to wear the most is the one of mother and grandmother. Dr. Smith has three children along with their wonderful spouses, ten plus grandchildren and three great grandchildren and another one on the way, as well as many “adopted” grandchildren that affectionately call her “Gammie”!
As well as being a medical professional, Dr. Smith is also an accomplished artist with awards given in many different mediums. Her favorite medium is working with gourds where she cuts, paints, carves, sculpts and weaves them into her art pieces.
Cheryl Stone
Cheryl Stone lives in Andalusia, AL. with her wonderful supporting husband, surrounded by her four children and 15 grandchildren. She believes, as parents, we are all first responders. By first responder she means, ever since 35 years ago when the Lord blessed her with her first baby girl, she had to be a first responder! Her path to herbal medicine began in a small Nature Sunshine store where whatever ailment her family had, there was an herb, a vitamin or mineral that always seemed to help.
Cheryl is a certified family, community, and clinical herbalist. She graduated from the Eclectic School of Herbal Medicine in 2013. She has studied with a number of well-known herbalists, where she originally met Darryl Patton.
Currently she is working on her fourth year of studying at Deep South Center of Herbal Studies with Darryl Patton. She has found her passion, love, and her happy place is studying herbs to help anyone who is willing to listen or to look back at the old traditional ways that the Lord intended.
Stephanie and Mike Whitehead
Mike and Stephanie Whitehead are retired horticulturists who have served the green industry for 30 years. They have spent their whole lives working with plants for both business and pleasure.
Now, living 0ff-grid in the foothills of the Southern Appalachian mountains, they enjoy growing and studying herbal plants in their native environment, gardening, hunting, fishing, and the peaceful land God has blessed them with preserving.
Emily Giles
I'm Emily Giles, herbalist and owner of A New Life Herbs in Somerville, TN. I started working in healthcare as a Physical Therapist Assistant in 2001. In 2007, as I watched my 2 year old struggle with asthma and chronic bronchitis which traditional medicine was not able to fix, I prayed for wisdom and looked to herbs. When I saw how well herbs worked to help my daughter, I was sold! It has now been over 17 years since she has had an outbreak. Seeing the effectiveness of herbs first hand started what I believe will be a lifelong journey of the study of herbs. I immediately dove in head first to study. I started with the library, I would check out every book I could on herbs and started practicing using them in various ways. This quickly led to using herbs to make my own medicine and with much success in helping my friends and family, I then branched out to sell some of my products. I also started studying under The Southern Herbalist, Darryl Patton. I learned so much about identifying our local plants in the wild and using them medicinally as well as wild edibles. In September 2019, we opened our local brick and mortar shop. This shop provides a 'hub' where it all takes place! It is here that we prepare all of our herbal products and also branched out to provide a Coffee & Tea Cafe to promote community and assist in our local mission of helping others! We also teach weekly herb classes, bible studies, monthly herb walks as well as kombucha classes and so much more. In 2024, we purchased our own property and building and relocated. Our new property allows us to have many more classes as well as a community garden and farmers market. Our goal is to share God with our community and help others to know Him as their Great Physician through the natural use of herbs. I have now been practicing herbal medicine, teaching others to do so, and assisting others in achieving freedom for their health for close to 20 years.
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