Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 8, 1995 TAG: 9504110050
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KIMBERLY N. MARTIN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Friday morning, Barbara Newman was ready for adventure, and the Women's Environmental Leadership Conference sponsored by Hollins College did not disappoint.
Newman, who was strapped with a canteen and wearing hiking boots, started off small, by scaling a wall. A hike up Tinker Mountain was next, and she was planning to wind down her day by performing a balancing act on a rope suspended several feet in the air.
"I figured, `Why not?' If I can't do it, fine," said Newman, who works in the pharmacy at Lewis-Gale Hospital.
But much to her disbelief, she could. She scaled the wall, and even played guide to a llama.
"They kept saying, `Go ahead and give it a try,' and I went ahead. It felt good to accomplish something you wouldn't ordinarily do," Newman said.
And that was much of the emphasis of the two-day conference, which focused on showing women in leadership roles on environmental issues.
"When you're at the base of that wall, you're looking up at it, and it's a task that seems uncomprehensible and unaccomplishable," said Gayle Stoner, who helped organize the conference. "But what you see is, it is manageable and accomplishable. They have to take a risk and try something they normally wouldn't."
That included walking a llama.
Some of the llamas, whose names included Bojangles and Pretty Boy Floyd, carried the hikers' lunches in blue pouches tossed over their sides.
The 14 llamas came from three farms - Judy Fee's was one of them.
Fee came out of retirement and drove up from North Carolina to give the 30-some students and community members the opportunity to see an animal most people rarely get close to.
"They wanted people to have some experience with the animals," said Fee, who is a llama breeder.
The mild-mannered animals indulged the gawking passers-by and children from Community School's preschool, who turned the caravan of beige, white and black animals into a mobile petting zoo. The animals were passed from one guide to another, so everyone got a chance to handle one.
"The llamas were a bonus," said Newman, who briefly shepherded Dusty.
And all day there was only one brief rebellion.
After the long, hard trek up Tinker Mountain, Glen decided he wanted a breather. So he stopped where he was, sprawled out on a bed of gravel and broken tree branches, and relaxed.
His revolt, however, was short-lived. Soon Karen Baum was tugging at the thick blue rope around her llama's neck and coaxing him back into the 14-llama train.
"These are my babies. Some people pack them when they go on hikes, and other people have them as pets," said Baum, a Huddleston veterinarian who has 40 llamas on her farm.
Breeding the animals, which Baum said are ideal for carrying tents and other camping gear, is a thriving business.
That's why she was invited to the conference.
"We wanted people to see women who are taking the initiative in environmental issues. You always see men, but women are out there making a difference as well," Stoner said.
The conference also featured seminars Friday evening and a host of workshops today with topics ranging from self-esteem to recreational forestry.
by CNB