Today's News

Throughout my fishing career I have always tried to seek new challenges. Challenges are what bring us back to the water time after time to reach new goals or overcome extreme adversities.

I have pursued and won challenges like light line tarpon, huge sharks, bull redfish on 10-pound test, spear fishing, and guiding, all of which can test your skills and patience.

But none of these difficult challenges compares with the task I took on last week on the FFA trip out to Seahorse Key.

Remember how simple it used to be to go on a vacation or any other trip? All you had to do was throw some clothes and toilet articles into a suitcase, throw the suitcase into the car and off you go. Now we have so many other necessities to take along, it is such a major undertaking that you have to start packing days ahead of time.

Nysie Watson was born to be an herbalist, it seems.

"All my life I've been aware of an alternate way of healing," she says. "We used to pick mushrooms - shiitake, chantarelles - my mother could name the names of almost all the plants we'd find in the Pacific Northwest."

She got her degree in Ag. Horticulture from the University of Oregon, but that's not what made her an herbalist.

No, it took two devastating back injuries and a bout with lymphoma to make Watson an herbalist. The lessons she learned fighting back injuries and cancer made a lifelong impression on her.

Mr. Dennis Voyles' agriculture wheel class has been busy tending to their gardens located behind the CKS lunchroom. This ag class, while learning about water and land conservation, decided to try a new method called square-foot gardening. Square foot gardening is a new concept. Instead of growing crops in rows, students think in terms of square feet sections within a small plot. Each student is assigned a 4' by 4' plot enclosed by 8-inch walls of plywood. This gives each just 16 square feet of area to work with.