FAMILY AFFAIR

RANDALL'S ADVENTURE & TRAINING PARENT-CHILD CLASS TEACHES SURVIVAL BASICS

-  REUBEN BOLIEU

Survival skills are for everyone and there are opportunities to get an early start in learning them.

PARENT-CHILD CLASS

The minimum age requirement for a Randall's Adventure & Training class is 18. However, the Parent-Child class allows participants from age eight and up. All must be accompanied by a parent, legal guardian, or family member. Randall's Adventure & Training has offered this class for several years. I have been fortunate enough to attend a few as an assistant. Lead instructor Patrick Rollins heads the outfit and covers the basics of survival in a class setting before taking the bunch into the woods for the hands-on portion. The parents are also students and responsible for keeping their children on track, hydrated, and focused.

DAY 1

Class starts at 8 a.m. in a small classroom with PowerPoint instruction on survival priorities and basics. The classroom portion lasts about 45 minutes before everyone heads outside. The class really harps on one major point: the Hug-a-Tree and Survive program.

This program is inspired by a nine-year-old boy who was lost in 1981 in southern California. Jimmy Beveridge was his name, and his body was found approximately three miles from where he was last seen. Searchers claim they would have found him earlier in the search if he had stayed put and waited. Children are noticed as missing fairly quickly. Staying put should be their best skill. So, if the kids take home one major point made in the class about being lost, it isn't the skills, it's to Hug-a-Tree and Survive.