Staci Keffer teaches 9th, 10th, and 11th grade history in Pocahontas County — and runs a club called Adventure Pocahontas, where outdoor adventure and tourism education share the same space, because in that county, they always have. Students earn community service hours required for graduation by doing something most schools don’t attempt: mentoring younger kids through outdoor experiences many of them have never had before.
The program reaches from second grade through middle school. High schoolers take second graders to Snowshoe for their first day on skis, then come back as those same kids move through third, fourth, and fifth grade — watching them go from first-time learners to kids who no longer need catching up. Spring programming sends third and fourth graders on overnight trips to Droop Mountain, where high school mentors help them set up tents, cook over a fire, and navigate glow-paint cave hikes. By seventh and eighth grade, students are doing two-night overnights and handling all of their own gear from start to finish.
Keffer describes the most visible result simply: you can tell when kids come back from one of these trips. The attitude is different. And the high schoolers who lead them tend to stay with it. At the WV Outdoor Economy Summit, two of those students sat down at the edge of a session break and talked about snowboarding, welding school, and plans to become pilots — one of them learning only recently that a flight program exists in Lewisburg, twenty minutes from home.
Learn more about: Pocahontas County Schools
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