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| A unique component of Walnut Creek Preserve is the planned Anne Elizabeth Suratt Educational Forest, which will be developed in the heart of the preserve surrounding Walnut Creek. The Educational Forest will use the natural forest floor surrounding Walnut Creek, untouched for more than 50 years, and nurture and add to its native flora. Signage and educational displays will promote learning about our native Southern Appalachian forest. The Educational Forest also will be open by invitation only at scheduled times to school groups and nature study groups, with a goal to further an appreciation in young people of the importance of our forest in our daily lives.
Walnut Creek Preserve and the Anne Elizabeth Suratt Educational Forest are the brainchild of Bob and Babs Strickland, who came to Western North Carolina in 1992 from Jacksonville, Florida to purchase a 94-acre apple orchard ("Serenity Farm", since converted to horse and sheep pasture and organic planting beds). Their daughter, Anne Elizabeth Suratt, loved Serenity Farm and the surrounding area as much as Babs and Bob do.
Anne was killed in a private plane crash in 1997 during her fourth year at the University of Illinois. She was majoring in remote sensing, a new field under the Forestry Department at the University. Anne's goal was to become an astronaut, and she was developing particular skills in reading landmasses from space. During one summer as a college student, she worked for the Bent Creek Research Station in Asheville and she always had a passion for hiking and enjoying the outdoors as well as space exploration. During her college years Anne spent countless hours as a volunteer in the local schools of Champaign, Illinois, teaching children about the complexity of the earth's environment, as seen through photographs taken in space. After Anne's death, Bob and Babs wished to honor her memory by creating a natural area that could become an educational forest available for teaching about the value of the Appalachian forest and the native plants in this foothills area. The objective for the Anne Elizabeth Suratt Educational Forest area is to protect the existing hardwoods and to gradually convert the maturing pine plantations to a mixed, natural forest. The Stricklands have engaged a professional forester who has prepared a Forest Management Plan. This plan is being followed as the Stricklands manage the initial thinning of the pine plantations. The Educational Forest will be endowed and managed by Grassy Knob Lands. The development of the Educational Forest will occur over time with additional plantings of native species to supplement the hundreds of species that already flourish on the forest floor. |
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