Enhance your outdoor survival skills and knowledge in a six-week class on wilderness survival and wild edible foraging at New River Community and Technical College’s Greenbrier Valley Campus, Lewisburg.

Students will receive over 30 hours of expert instruction and hands-on field training in building fires, creating traps and snares, establishing shelter, foraging for food, finding and purifying water and making ropes and twine. Students will also have the opportunity to participate in an optional overnight survival outing.

Instructor W. Todd Longanacre is the Park Superintendent/Park Ranger for the WV Division of Natural Resources at Moncove Lake State Park in Gap Mills. He is a former Army paratrooper and a 29-year combat veteran of the United States Army with multiple overseas tours. Major Longanacre retired from the military in May 2015 and relocated back to West Virginia. He holds two undergraduate degrees, one in forestry and the other in biology with an emphasis in the natural sciences, and a Master of Science in Organizational Behavior.

The wilderness survival class will be offered on Tuesdays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. starting Sept. 12. Pre-registration for the course is required by Sept. 5.  The cost is $180.

For more information about community education classes at New River CTC or to register contact Gloria Kincaid at 304-793-6101 or gkincaid@newriver.edu.

New River Community and Technical College serves nine counties in southeastern West Virginia from the Greenbrier Valley Campus (Lewisburg), Mercer County Campus (Princeton), Nicholas County Campus (Summersville) and Raleigh County Campus (Beaver/Beckley).