{"id":70781,"date":"2017-04-24T19:14:35","date_gmt":"2017-04-25T01:14:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cathy-epps-honored-as-school-garden-champion\/"},"modified":"2017-04-25T01:14:35","modified_gmt":"2017-04-25T01:14:35","slug":"cathy-epps-honored-as-school-garden-champion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cathy-epps-honored-as-school-garden-champion\/","title":{"rendered":"Cathy Epps honored as school garden champion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=99ba091f-ae7d-4706-b757-045b61daa0b0&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1563\" alt=\"Mancos Elementary Principal Cathy Epps, third from left, is joined by some of her students and teacher Tara Wilburn, right of Epps, as she is honored as a school garden champion.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Mancos Elementary Principal Cathy Epps, third from left, is joined by some of her students and teacher Tara Wilburn, right of Epps, as she is honored as a school garden champion.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Jacob Klopfenstein\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>Mancos Elementary Principal Cathy Epps got a surprise on Saturday when she was honored as a Mancos School Garden Champion.<\/p>\n<p>Teachers, students and Montezuma School to Farm Project staff members presented the award to Epps at a Mancos Conservation District meeting Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>They created a plaque that will be put up at the Mancos School Garden in Epps\u2019 honor.<\/p>\n<p>Epps had been told the award would be given to someone else, so she was speechless \u201cfor the first time ever\u201d as she was being honored, she said.<\/p>\n<p>She has been recovering after a Jan. 2 crash north of Mancos in which she sustained severe injuries, including a brain injury.<\/p>\n<p>She said that anticipating her return to school and being able to work with students in the school\u2019s garden again had helped her recovery.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m so blessed and honored,\u201d she said. \u201cThis has been part of my drive to go on.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>MSTFP Interim Director Sarah Syverson said the group wanted to thank Epps for her support and all the work she\u2019s done for the garden over the years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWithout her, we wouldn\u2019t have the school garden in the way that it is,\u201d Syverson said.<\/p>\n<p>Mancos Elementary School recently was awarded a $110,000 grant that will help fund an upgrade to the school\u2019s playground, including a new outdoor classroom. Epps led the application effort for that grant.<\/p>\n<p>Mancos Elementary Teacher Tara Wilburn said the school garden means a lot to teachers and students.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCathy was the big champion for this,\u201d Wilburn said. \u201cWe so appreciate her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Several students read poems they wrote about Epps and the school garden.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019re the best principal I know,\u201d third-grader Olivia Jukes read in her poem. \u201cI can\u2019t wait for you to come back.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em class=\"mwc_shirttail\"><a href=\"mailto:jacobk@the-journal.com\">jacobk@the-journal.com<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Farm surprises elementary principal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":70782,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,83,961,60,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-70781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-mancos","tag-mancos-elementary-school","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70781"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=70781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}