Bio, 2014: Sandra Dutreau Williams
Sandra Dutreau Williams, Fungus Queen: I live by a pond between Stillwater and Perkins with my husband Doug, two cats, two dogs, and almost always friends and guests. We nurture about 1000 shiitake mushroom logs around the corner at Lost Creek Mushroom Farm and sell shiitake log kits online. My Life in the Theater acting and directing has given way to social activism -- speaking, teaching and writing about the Marvelous Magical World of Mushrooms (not to be confused with magic mushrooms, which are marvelous, too; but illegal). We have traveled to China, India, and Africa learning about mushrooms, especially medicinal mushrooms, and encouraging people to appreciate, eat and grow mushrooms. I’m writing a book about mushrooms for health and well-being, presenting programs, and mentoring mushroom farmers online, particularly women, in the US, Afghanistan, Central America, and Africa. Our Mushrooms in Ghana Project, started in 2007, is nearing completion; and we recently started The Voice of the Mushroom Foundation, expanding that concept worldwide. I’ve been involved with Dan Burns and Susan Petty Burns and their work with autism(and mushrooms that can help kids with autism). For fun, Doug and I and two more couples took our first cruise this winter. We had a great time and we’re gonna do it again. At one of our Class of 64 reunion lunches (a bunch of fun there, too!), I might have been the only un-cruised person at the table. Wiley said I would really enjoy it. Nothing beats out-and-out encouragement -- no wonder he was our student council prez!
Bio, 2009: Sandra Dutreau Williams
Yes, she's still doing theatre and volunteering in the arts and she's still doing mushrooms (shiitakes -- the healthy kind). Grandmother "Pamby" to twin girls, she writes essays and poems and makes quilts. She's lived in Alaska, summered in Romania, traveled in Mexico and South America, and likes staying home, too. She typed for twenty years as technical writer and editor, overlapping with seven years of end-of-life-time with both her parents.
Freed from caretaking, Sandra and Doug went to Ghana, West Africa, for seven weeks as volunteer mushroom consultants. They've created Mushrooms in Ghana, a project to bring two Ghanaians here to learn shiitake production and to help introduce shiitakes as a second crop to oyster mushroom farmers. She's been named a Payne County Featured Woman in Ag for 2009. Lost Creek Mushroom Farm is the top-selling shiitake log kit company in the US. Sandra (pronounced Sondra) says, "You just don't know where you're gonna go in life. I never for a moment thought I be the Fungus Queen!"
©2009 Stillwater High School Class of 1964