BANNER ELK — Mountain Legends, a group that honors individuals who have contributed significantly to the High Country through education, service, scholarship, or development, welcomed its fifth cohort of Legends on Thursday, April 18 with a special induction ceremony at LP on Main.
The program, hosted by the college’s Outdoor Recreation Management academic program, inducts a new group of Legends each year, celebrating the invaluable contributions they have made to the outdoor recreation field on and around the college’s campus. This year’s Mountain Legends are Bunny Johns, Doc Klein, Skip Sickler, and Paul Wolf.
Throughout her career, Johns, who worked with the American Canoe Association (ACA) for many years, helped develop the de facto standard in white water canoe and kayak paddling instruction at the ACA. Her leadership helped develop, refine, and disseminate a standard of instructor certification and whitewater rescue best practices that became widely adopted throughout the industry. Johns made countless contributions to whitewater kayaking and is honored as a Mountain Legend in recognition.
Klein’s life has been dedicated to the outdoors since he first traveled to Yosemite National Park for a camping trip in 1964. From there, a passion and career for the industry bloomed, and Klein spent 45 years with North Carolina Outward Bound School as an instructor, advisor, and director at Kurt Hahn Leadership Center. After overcoming a rare heart virus Klein doubled down on his dedication to outdoor recreation, and committed himself to helping others flourish in their love for the outdoors with his initiative One Amazing Year.
Throughout his life the great outdoors was a constant for Sickler, a child of a Navy family who moved frequently throughout his youth. That foundation of love for the natural world led him to pursue a career in the field. Over the years Sickler has been a park ranger with the National Park Service, worked with North Carolina Outward Bound School as well as the organization’s Voyageur and Hurricane Island programs, served as a field instructor, worked at Camp Broadstone, and more.
In college Wolf fell in love with rock climbing and has built a career around the sport. For nearly a decade he worked at Voyageur Outward Bound School as a course director, staff trainer, and rock-climbing technician and instructor. From there he took on a variety of roles in the outdoor industry, including as an experiential education specialist with a wilderness adventure program for incarcerated youth, Program Coordinator of Custom Programs at Nantahala Outdoor Center, and a member of the crew designing challenge courses for Alpine Towers. Twenty-four years ago, Wolf took on his most ambitious role yet as the founding director of the Outdoor Leadership degree program at Southwestern Community College. The program includes certificate programs in wilderness therapy and wilderness emergency medicine.
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