People from all walks of life across 25 states and Canada flock to the Appalachian foothills of southern Ohio every May, where they gathered to learn skills that teach self-reliance.
More than 140 classes are taught by instructors from around the country included butchering, canning, herbalism, emergency medicine techniques, food preservation, blacksmithing, beekeeping, and gardening.
To better reflect the mission of the event, the Old School Survival Boot Camp is now known as Heritage Skills USA.
Tara Dodrill and her husband, Bobby, are the event’s founders. They live on a 60-acre farm in Vinton County, not far from the fairgrounds, where the event is held. The closest community is McArthur, a one-stoplight village a few miles away.
“At a time when food prices are high and supply chain issues impact availability, there are questions about ingredients and chemicals in food. Leading a self-sufficient lifestyle is being embraced by everyone from city dwellers with no land and suburbanites with quarter-acre lots to farmers and homesteaders with an abundance of space.”
“We are far too dependent on modern luxuries,” she said. “We’ve lost our way as a society because it is less common to know how to provide your own resources than it was even 75 or 100 years ago.
“The boot camp is a hands-on, interactive event. You learn better from hands-on experiences, and the more you do something, the more comfortable you get.”
Most attendees have conservative beliefs, Dodrill noted, but that isn’t the case for everyone.
“A vegetarian went to the butchering class because her doctor said she needed to introduce meat protein into her diet,” she said. “She attended classes all three days, and by the third day, she learned to butcher by herself. This is a woman in her 20s who is a city-based liberal with her beliefs but recognized the importance of learning a skill to make her better prepared and improve her health.”
Beth Levering lives with her husband and three children in a southwest Ohio neighborhood. She was raised on a farm and has experience with planting and growing. She brought her kids to the boot camp in 2021 “when there was not a lot happening in person because of COVID shutdowns.”
“I’m a constitutional conservative and believe in freedom causes, but I’m not a prepper,” Levering said. “I think the COVID pandemic brought more attention to the possibility of supply shortages and mandates where you can’t go where you want. It is important to be prepared.”
Judi Phelps and her husband, Scott, live on a 32-acre property a few miles from the Vinton County Fairgrounds. They had a firearms training company called On Guard Defense and a shooting range for years. They grow their own vegetables and fruits, and they raise chickens for eggs and meat. They also have freeze driers that operate around the clock, she said, for dehydrating foods that have a 25-year shelf life.
“We get our beef from a local farmer who does not use hormones, and it’s all grass-fed. We acquire raw milk through a local dairy farmer. And so we make our own yogurt, butter, and cream cheese. Knowing how to safely and effectively use firearms is critical for self-sufficiency, for hunting and self-defense, and that is empowering.
“When you know how to grow and raise your own food, that minimizes your dependency on grocery stores, and you know what is actually in your food. That is empowering, too.”
Ryan Lehman, who lives in the Hocking Hills region of Ohio, teaches beekeeping and cast-iron preservation classes. He was introduced to beekeeping about 10 years ago when a friend told him that an abandoned church nearby his house that was built in the 1800s had colonies of bees in the walls. The church was starting to crumble, and the county bee inspector joined him to remove the colonies.
“He gave me a colony of bees and mentored me, and now I mentor others who want to learn,” Lehman said.
The population of bees is in decline due to factors such as pesticides and urbanization. Bees provide multiple benefits to people leading a self-sufficient lifestyle; honey has medicinal properties, and bees’ role as pollinators makes them essential for crop and plant growth.
“Every spring, honeybees swarm, and if you understand how to put out traps, you can collect honeybees for your hive,” Lehman said.
A former Air Force police officer, Lehman now works in law enforcement at the VA Medical Center in Columbus, Ohio.
“From my experience in law enforcement, and my interest in beekeeping and cast iron, I have some knowledge that people there might find useful,” he said. “If you connect with one person and give knowledge, it gives that person a better sense of security and gets them in the right direction for learning more.”
The Old School Survival Boot Camp bolsters eco-tourism in a region rich with natural treasures such as Ash Cave and Cantwell Cliffs, Dodrill said. Hocking Hills State Park and Wayne National Forest cover more than half of Vinton County.
“We also see people from all experience levels, including homesteaders who have lived in rural areas for years, city dwellers who want to learn how to become self-sufficient, and people who are ready to make a change and get property and learn how to lead a self-sustaining lifestyle,” Dodrill said. “We get people from all walks of life who, for a day or a weekend, are like-minded and have a shared purpose that could one day save their lives and the lives of their families.”
The May gathering is only one feature of Heritage Skills USA. Dodrill also develops homeschooling curriculum centered around teaching sustainable living.
The Heritage Skills USA Network offers homesteading books, planners, logs, journals, cookbooks, and a homeschool curriculum created for homesteading families.
The Heritage Explorers Fest is an event that focuses on the pioneer era in Ohio and will take place on Oct. 25, bringing Ohio pioneer history to life.
