Neal Zelarney
Neal Zelarney is a graduate of Quest University Canada and a Colorado native. During his years of study at Quest, Neal looked at the question, “What is the perfect meal?” His research led him to think about ways to improve the way people eat.
“We critically need solutions,” Neal says, “to many of the environmental (e.g. eutrophication, climate change, and the pesticide treadmill) and societal issues (e.g. obesity and food insecurity) of our food system.” Neal’s long term goal is to create his own business or organization to access the perfect meal through urban agriculture. To that end, he is already actively involved, among other things, as a member of the steering committee for Northeast Community Co-op. Neal is working on his second OC internship, this time for the High Plains Food Co-op in Denver, CO.
Timothy Mitcham
Timothy Mitcham is a married father of two children, and he and his wife recently celebrated their 11th anniversary. He is currently a student in the School of Information Technologies at Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology. His studies focus on two options: Network Infrastructure and Information Assurance and Forensics.
Timothy has been in the Oklahoma National Guard for almost six years and has been deployed overseas once. He hopes to use his degrees to build his skills as an Intelligence Analyst in the military, and hopefully continue into a federal intelligence agency. The real life experiences provided by an internship, he notes, will come with “real life challenges and the opportunity to learn from those who have been in the workplace and also the opportunity to teach those who may have no experience with IT what it is and how it helps everyone in their daily life.”
This will be Timothy’s first internship with OC, and he is working with Mvskoke Food Sovereinty in eastern Oklahoma.
Courtney Alexander
Courtney Alexander of Matador, TX, graduated from Motley County ISD in 2009 and headed to college with an interest in Animal Science. She began her collegiate career at Texas A&M, but as her focus within Animal Science became more specific, she transferred to Texas Tech, but was not sure what she would do with the degree she wanted. After taking a year off to decide what degree truly caught her passion, she came up with a surprising answer. During her break, she became a substitute teacher at her old high school and fell in love with education. She returned to school and is in the process of changing her major to reflect this new path. Courtney hopes to use her internship to gain experience in her community’s history and share it with the young students she will teach in the future.
Courtney will be interning with Matador Jail Historic Museum.
Cateline Isely
Cateline Isely came to rural Cheyene County, KS nine years ago from near Philadelphia, PA. While she has lived in several places, she notes that Kansas is the place she has finally called “home”. Cateline is currently enrolled at Kansas State University pursuing a bachelor’s degree she plans to use to return home and open her own business—a tack shop.
Cateline loves working with horses, and has also written several unpublished novels. She has watched with interest as several artistic ideas launch and succeed in her small town. She and her family raise organic produce and grass-fed cattle in a community that pushes for local, healthy foods and activities that promote healthy living.
Cateline’s internship will be with Northwest Kansas Health Communities Project.
Bo Wardlow
Originally from Mississippi, Bo Wardlow went from training and coaching a local gymnastics team to helping his parents run a construction business where he worked his way up to manager. Then, he answered a call from an online permaculture forum looking for interns. His first internship from March 2014 to March 2015 involved working and living at Bodhi farms, a permaculture-based farm in Las Vegas, New Mexico. After his stay at Bodhi Farms, Bo interned at Synergy Aquaponics in Tuscon. From Tuscon, Bo moved to Mescalero, NM to do some volunteer work at N’de Farm on the Mescalero Apache Reservation. There, he helps in the garden and farmer’s market. In Mescalero, Bo hopes to help contribute to making the community more sustainable and self-reliant. This internship will continue Bo’s work with N’De Farm at Mescalero Apache Reservation.
