Off Campus

Celebrating the ties between Marshall University and the beauty of the Mountain State

Mountains. Trees. Rivers and lakes. Trails and wildlife. All within a relatively easy, and sometimes extremely short, drive. It’s one of the beautiful things about the state of West Virginia, and for many Marshall students, employees and graduates, it’s been a key element of their experience.

It’s been their favorite way to spend weekends and summers — either working, adventuring or relaxing and recharging outdoors. It’s been their preferred venue for spending time with family and friends. It’s a backdrop of their wellness routine, whether hiking, biking, trail running, skiing or kayaking. For some, it’s even inspired careers.

West Virginia has something for everybody and plenty of nature to offer, said Dr. Rick Gage, an associate professor and program coordinator for Marshall’s Natural Resources and Recreation Management degree program.

“This is the lowest population density east of the Mississippi River. It’s rugged terrain. It keeps people out,” he said. “It means that when you’re out in the woods, you’re out in the woods. You don’t have to fight crowds or wait in line to access a trail. It’s here, it’s readily available and it’s relatively unspoiled compared to other places.

“As a species, we’re pre-programmed to want to connect to nature,” Gage said. “In modern society, it’s a lot harder and a lot of people have a bigger disconnect, but you put somebody who grew up and spent their entire life in an urban environment, you take them out into the woods, and something happens. It connects to our brain in a different way.” The summer season especially is a time when many in the Marshall family celebrate the Mountain State’s natural splendor and endless outdoor opportunities, and we thought we’d take a moment to showcase just a few of the ways that the outdoors has enhanced the lives of people in the university community, and how a few members of the Herd are giving back by celebrating the outdoors in their own ways.

Kaylee Baker

Making Worries Seem Small

Kaylee Baker, a senior geology major, has been working at the rock wall in the Marshall Rec Center since her sophomore year, where she teaches people different climbing and belaying skills. She grew up in both Florida and West Virginia, but chose the latter for college and plans to stay here a while.

She loves the mountains and the seasons, she said.

“My favorite things to do outside are hiking, camping and climbing. I also really enjoy herping and birding,” she said. “I try to get outside as much as possible.

Any free time I have, I like to use it to get outside by myself or with friends. This can mean driving to Fayetteville for a day of climbing or simply walking the trails at the Huntington Museum of Art. One of the best things about climbing is getting to explore many different areas of our state that you wouldn’t usually get to see. Climbing and outdoor recreation have greatly contributed to my fondness of West Virginia. West Virginia’s beauty is like no other and I love getting to talk to people about how much our state has to offer.”

Being outdoors gives you perspective and makes your worries seem small, Baker said.

“Day to day, we all have the stresses of our jobs, school, bills, etc. and it can feel overwhelming,” she said. “Whenever I am outside, I see so many different forms of life and trees and rocks that have been here way longer than me. It reminds me how small my worries are and how small I am when compared to how grand nature is. Not to mention, just how peaceful it is to not hear cars and sirens like you do in the city.

“It is nice to instead hear leaves rustling in the wind, the birds chirping, frogs croaking, and maybe a little creek flowing, if you are near one. I also love just looking at all the bugs, critters and, of course, rocks. It is crazy how many cool things you can see when you just stop and look down for a second. I just like appreciating and spending time in our natural places. Some people don’t have access to nature like we do, and I am extremely grateful to be surrounded by it. I also think it’s important that people keep spending time in our parks and forests because that’s a big part of what helps keep them protected.”

Ally Sexton

‘A Place for Joy to be Had’

When Ally Sexton looks out her bedroom window here in Huntington, she sees Highland cattle.

“Brave and Heart — those are my neighbors. The thing is hearing them at night,” she said with a laugh.

Sexton is a worker in residence at Heritage Farm Museum and Village, located about 15 minutes from the Marshall campus. It offers museums and attractions celebrating Appalachian history and culture, a petting zoo, as well as an adventure park with ropes courses, ziplining, mountain bike trails and, now under construction, a snow park that will provide opportunities for skiing, snowboarding, tubing and ice skating.

Heritage Farm was founded by two 1958 Marshall alumni, Henriella Perry and the late A. Michael Perry, who also served as interim president at Marshall from 1999-2000, and now the farm continues to grow under the leadership of their son, Audy Perry.

During business hours, Sexton oversees the small ropes course for children. When they’re closed for the weekend, she feeds the animals — which covers a broad spectrum, including bunnies, chickens, pigs, the miniature cow Firecracker, sheep, goats, peacocks, foxes, a skunk, tortoise, miniature horses, a buffalo, an elk, alpacas and so much more.

“The donkey – he’s a fan favorite. He gets all the pets. He demands you pet him,” she said. The buffalo in residence is Marco. He’s a real buffalo, but, “The goats in here with him act more like a buffalo than he does” she said.

Sexton has also helped as a facilitator on the children’s ropes course, as well as the large ropes course and the zipline.

“We are there to support the process — to guide you if you need it, but we’re there to train you to have fun on your own,” she said. “With kids, our thing is just supporting kids through. Getting them through the fear so they can ride the (smaller) zipline.” College students are integral in helping to shape the future of tourism in the Mountain State, said Chelsea Ruby, secretary for the West Virginia Department of Tourism.

“There are more than 20,000 tourism job openings expected over the next five years, and we encourage young professionals to bring their fresh perspectives and join this thriving industry,” she said. “From welcome center staff to adventure guides, working in this field offers endless opportunities to shape the world’s perspective of this wonderful place we call home.”

Sexton graduated from Marshall this year with a degree in criminal justice and starts graduate school in the fall to study school counseling and mental health. She started working at Heritage Farm a couple years ago because she simply needed a second job, and a friend she’d met through the Campus Christian Center helped her connect.

She’s glad he did. Getting to work with children outdoors with an amazing group of people and animals has been an experience second to none, she said.

“I think we are a place for joy to be had,” said Sexton, who hails from St. Albans, West Virginia, and attends New Baptist Church along with several co-workers at the farm. “There’s just a smile on everyone’s face.

You see it when you walk around, and guests leave with that same smile. I think that’s just hospitality in West Virginia — it’s very evident right here.”

And working outside is a bonus.

“Being outdoors — there’s a peace about it,” she said. “You hear these birds — how can you not be relaxed? My friends and I went on a night hike the other day to stargaze at the top (of a hill).

“My friend was like, ‘Are those your birds?’ No, those are just birds — we’re just out in the woods. But this is peace, right?”

Gritt’s Farm

A Reason to Come Home

Brad Gritt grew up in Putnam County in a farming family. By the time he was attending Marshall between 2009-2012, his family had begun transitioning out of tobacco growing. They were growing their fall business, selling pumpkins to enhance their mums sale. They tried their first corn maze.

But Gritt was set on finance, and after graduating from Marshall, he headed out to Salt Lake City for a job in investment banking.

“I did that for six months,” he said. “I loved the snowboarding, loved the area, but I realized that banking was maybe not my speed. And I say I got ‘farmsick,’ especially as the spring came around. It was getting sunny, and you’re in this glass box looking outside, and I was like, ‘Man, I want to get back.’” He came back in 2013, and that’s where he’s been for the past 12 years, growing his family business, Gritt’s Farm, into not only a successful garden center and provider of produce, but a thriving agri-tourism destination, with a fall farm attraction that draws thousands of visitors from around the region and beyond.

“All of the stuff I learned in business school — finance, marketing, management — it all ties into what we’re doing here,” said Gritt, who serves as manager alongside his father, Bob Gritt, who owns the farm, and brother, Bobby Gritt, who is production manager.

“My dad started planting pumpkins to really encourage people to buy mums. The evolution started with that — and people were like, ‘You have pumpkins. What else can you do?’” They added a corn maze one year, and the next, hayride wagons and a corn slide tower. It’s been exploding ever since.

“That was another driving factor that brought me back. I had left right at the end of that first real season of it, and I knew there was something there,” Brad Gritt said. “It was kind of like leaving your dog at home. Then I came back, and we took off running with it from there.

“I want to bring cool things to West Virginia — that’s part of the objective of adding these things,” he said.

“…Everyone has this perception of going to Grandma and Grandpa’s farm, and we kind of are that, I think, for a lot of our community. They live in town, and while West Virginia in general is rural, this looks a little different out here than downtown Huntington or downtown Charleston. We want to just give you that feel. …There’s a cornfield surrounded 360 degrees by trees, and it’s a unique feeling to be out there in that.” They certainly get a lot of visits from West Virginians, but also have had visitors from all 50 states and other countries, he said. Helping market the farm’s offerings to the masses is Alexandra Pfost, another graduate of Marshall’s Lewis College of Business.

“The education I received there and the opportunities to be involved on campus with the Campus Activities Board and Student Government really helped set some of those leadership standards that I still carry today,” Pfost said. “With Brad’s help, I’m able to manage a team of upwards of 100 people for our peak seasons. I give Marshall credit for so much of what I’m able to do here. We just want this to be a really cool place and an experience that you can’t get anywhere else in West Virginia.” Along with creating outdoor fun in West Virginia, Brad Gritt likes that he provides jobs, including a handful of full-time, year-round jobs, so that talented people can stay in their home state and thrive. They also hire plenty of part-timers, including Marshall students.

“There is nothing more special than doing something positive in and for your community — and giving people something so that when they come here, they’re bringing their family back,” he said. “It’s an honor to be able to be that and say that.”

Dr. Rick Gage

Learning Doesn’t Always Take Place in a Classroom

Dr. Rick Gage has lived and worked in a lot of places, from New York to Nebraska to Colorado, to name a few.

“I keep coming back to West Virginia, and I don’t plan on leaving again,” he said. “It has something for everybody. Within a relatively small area and a couple hours’ drive, you can get to the mountains, you can get to rivers, you can get to true wilderness areas, federally designated wilderness. You can do everything.

“There is world-class rock-climbing, whitewater rafting, ziplining and hiking — just everything you can imagine.

For passive recreation, there’s flatwater paddling, and there’s birdwatching, wildlife viewing and scenic drives — there’s literally something for everybody. This is a hidden gem.” As a teacher of natural resources and recreation management, he’s made it his mission to help students understand that sustainability requires balance between environmental protection, economic sustainability, and socio-cultural sustainability.

“It’s not strictly focused on protecting the resource — we’re trying to build the economy, reduce poverty and increase people’s quality of life, while preserving the cultural uniqueness of the state as well. We also want to preserve Appalachian heritage and history,” Gage said.

While resource extraction and manufacturing have historically been drivers of the economy, tourism has been an increasingly important contributor, with visitor spending on the rise over the past several years. “We bring in billions of external dollars to West Virginia to develop local communities and improve the livelihoods of people here,” he said.

When you’re talking about the official offerings of the state of West Virginia, in terms of state parks services, that includes 36 state parks, eight state forests and three rail trails — all of which offer free entry for both in-state residents and out-of-state visitors. And to accommodate the spectrum of tourists’ commitment to “roughing it,” the state offers everything from secluded locations perfect for camping and mountain biking to resort state parks equipped with newly renovated lodges and luxury spas.

“People like to connect to nature. But it doesn’t mean everybody wants the back-country wilderness experience, fighting off bears and stuff like that,” Gage said. “Your connection to nature might be hiking on the ADA-accessible path at Ritter Park or walking your dog in the neighborhood.” There’s a “recreation spectrum” with a range of ways in which our love of nature might manifest, he said.

“For some people, camping means hiking miles into the wilderness with everything you need to survive on your back, living off the land and being completely self-sufficient,” Gage said. “For other people, it might be rolling up to Beech Fork with your RV and your satellite dish and internet connection and sitting out and cooking marshmallows on the fire with your kids.

It’s still camping.” His students go on to careers in fields such as resource conservation, outdoor education and programming, and natural resource law enforcement.

The capstone experience for his program involves a trip out into the wilderness, where they do everything from assessing the wilderness quality (looking at ecological quality, trail width, erosion, invasive species and the like) to interviewing people about their recreation preferences.

“One of my core teaching philosophies is learning doesn’t always take place in a classroom, so I’m always trying to find ways to get my students outdoors,” Gage said. “This program, obviously, lends itself to that perfectly, and West Virginia is the best living classroom I could imagine.” One of his primary goals is to help others build a personal connection to nature.

“That’s how we move to a sustainable society, by not walling off our parks and the last remaining fragments of untouched resources,” he said. “We don’t want to block them off from people — we want to put people in there. We want to give them a fishing pole and let them catch a Golden Trout and have that experience.

They’re going to remember that and want to protect those waterways. That is the core of what I do.

Recreation is one of many tools in our toolbox for achieving a sustainable society.”

Photo by Austin O’Connor