Michelle is our resident plant nerd and reigning Waddalyatcha champion!

She first connected with Ekone in early 2017 and has been a year-round Ekone staff since early 2020. Michelle brings many years of experience working in art, garden, and nature education, and love love LOVES to work with kids outside in nature. She has taught everything from preschool to art camp to middle school science to adult education and everything in between. She has a B.A. in Art from UC Berkeley and an M.S. in Sustainability Education from Portland State, and is currently working on a second M.S. in Conservation Biology. She is also a certified Wilderness First Responder. You can often find her planting seeds, smelling trees, or investigating tiny flowers.

Favorite summer activities? Early morning garden projects, exploring the woods, and building community with campers.

Liz has a special understanding with chickens, but she understands horses and kids pretty well, too.

A dynamic leader and longtime staff member, Liz first came to Ekone as a camper in 1995 and hasn’t missed a summer since. She is most known around the ranch for her love of all things related to homestead living: fixing things, building things, raising goats, pigs, and poultry, cooking and preserving food, putting in firewood, driving the tractor, having ever more Supreme Adventures in the woods, reading voraciously whenever there's time, and laughing loud enough to be heard from the other side of the ranch! Liz has lived year-round at Ekone since 2013, and is now the Operations Director, as well as supporting many weeks of summer camp and other programs. Before coming to live at Ekone full-time, Liz spent six years managing a small pasture-based livestock farm on Vashon Island, WA, raising dairy cows, pigs, sheep, and poultry for the Seattle farmer's markets. 

Liz grew up in SE Portland, and graduated from Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, where she received a BA in Media and Cultural Studies, as well as working at the college’s farm and CSA. She is also certified in Wilderness First Aid.

Ruby first came to Ekone Ranch for a horse camp in 2016 and after the first day, they knew that Ekone would always have a special place in their heart. They have returned every year since, first as a camper, then a youth volunteer and now as a staff member. Ruby lives for Ekone's camp community and is happiest when working alongside campers and staff. Ruby prides themselves on their attention to detail. You will often find them bustling around the ranch making sure everything is in order.

When not at Ekone, Ruby enjoys hiking, reading, and tending to their various farm animals.

Ruby is from Olympia Washington and will be attending Warren Wilson College starting fall 2022.

Ruby’s favorite camp activity is music night!

Chris is the Queen of the Yummy Tummy Café, and our resident camp mama.

Chris Woodcock has been cooking for Ekone summer camps since 1995.  It all started, she says, when her daughter became a staff helper at camp and convinced her to come along for the ride.  After her first season, Chris moved to Ekone and hasn’t left since!

Chris is a homesteader at heart and lived in both Maine and British Columbia before coming to Ekone with her partner, Bob, and her three daughters.  Ekone can’t get rid of her, they say, “because she’s too nice, and the food is just too darn good!”  Chris cares passionately about providing healthy meals for the kids, and showing them how it grows in the garden.  “It’s my favorite place and my favorite thing to do,” she says of the Yummy Tummy Café.

Her favorite summer activities?  “Harvesting and serving food from our garden, watching kids grow and deepen into the Ekone experience, interacting with our wonderful staff, and laughing with Lizzy.”  She is certified in Wilderness First Aid and gives the very best hugs.

Jenna brings her quirky sense of humor to the horse program, and she ain't afraid to get dirty in the process!

Jenna was a horse crazy 11-year-old when she first started coming to summer camp and has been returning ever since then, as a camper, intern and camp staff. In 2013, she graduated from Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia, with a BA in Studio Art, spent the summer working at camp, and then jumped on a sailboat from Seattle to New Zealand. Ask her about it sometime!

She has experience in the hunter ring and has been teaching riding skills to campers and lesson students for more than ten years. One of her favorite things about summer camp is watching campers' deepening connection with the horses and increase in self-confidence that comes hand-in-hoof with the riding and horsemanship skills.

In January of 2018, Jenna joined the year-round Ekone staff team and now calls the ranch home for four seasons a year!

Alyssa is our resident Craft Queen and a loving goat mama.

Alyssa has been coming to camp for the past four years. She never got the opportunity to come as a camper, but is now making up for lost time! Alyssa loves to explore the relationship between arts & crafts and the natural world with the kids, and to wander in the woods learning about the different plants and critters in the area. 

When not at Ekone, Alyssa spends her time pursuing her own art, playing with her plants and exploring a new found love for cooking. Her favorite Ekone activity: Evenings milking the goats!

Adela grew up on her family’s animal farm on Vashon Island where she met Liz, who smuggled her into summer camp in 2010! She has been coming back ever since. Adela can usually be found climbing trees, hiding in the forest, or in the kitchen making mountains of sauerkraut. Her favorite things about living at the ranch are watching the land cycle through the seasons and being surprised by the unique beauty of every new day—it never gets old! She loves living far away from bright city lights, and is always excited to help kids learn how to have fun sans technology. She felt very lucky to spend her gap year between high school and college living and volunteering at Ekone, and now attends Amherst College in Massachusetts.

...Ekone Ranch in 1972, and summer camp in 1986.

Ray Mitchell (1946-2007) was the founder and visionary of Ekone Summer Camps, and his great love of the children, the land, and the horses lives on in everyone who experiences Ekone.

Shonie first came to camp in 1994, because of a picture just like this one.

She first showed up at camp as a horse-crazy teenager, and began serving as the Executive Director of Sacred Earth Foundation and Ekone Summer Camps in 2009.  She lives full-time on the ranch and has a great passion for sharing this special land with children of all ages and inspiring earth stewardship.  Shonie has over ten years of leadership with Ekone summer camps under her belt, and brings her natural sense of responsibility, practicality, and FUN to the task.

Shonie has a degree in Community Development and Food Systems from The Evergreen State College.  She has a wide variety of professional experience in the non-profit, educational, and agricultural sectors, including serving as the Food & Farming Program Manager at Sustainable Connections in Bellingham, WA.  She is certified in Wilderness First Aid.

Her favorite summer activities?  "Watching the kids fall in love with the land and learn big life lessons from our patient horses."

Max Gregor has been involved with Ekone since 2020. He first visited in the winter as one of our forestry interns, and after falling in love with the people and the land, was then easily convinced to stay all summer long for camp. He brings with him 20 years of music experience, both as a solo artist and as a member of the group Lemuria (those are links to Spotify pages, if you want to give him a listen!). At Ekone, he has discovered a love for horses and for the physical demands of the ranch lifestyle. Max aims to intertwine his mindfulness meditation practice with his passion for music and community into his offerings at music camp and beyond. Originally from Vermont, Max has lived all over the United States, traveled the world making music, and currently resides in Boulder, CO while he works on his BA in psychology at Naropa University. At Ekone, you can often find him cooking up a feast in the kitchen, playing guitar in the lodge, or wandering around the woods.

Evelyn first came to Ekone with her cousins and grandma when she was 8 years old and fell in love with the ranch. Since then she has made many valiant but failed efforts to never leave, as a camper, volunteer, and now as a staff member. Evelyn loves to do all the things from cooking, playing music, working with horses, and everything in between. She loves the friends and sense of self she has found at Ekone and hopes as a staff member she inspires and gives the same love and care to others. Evelyn is from Portland Oregon and attends Macalester College in St. Paul Minnesota. Their fav camp activities are writing silly camp songs, becoming friends with the horses, working in the garden, and stargazing.