Pam McElroy is a member of the Lincoln County Mycological Society and current Vice President of the Lincoln County Master Gardener Association. Gardening and mushrooms! That's a combination that has been part of her life since she was just a kiddo. She grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and her family always had a HUGE garden. And in the wild and rugged U.P., wild food was a given...fish, game, birds, wild mushrooms, wild greens, berries, fruit, all of which went very well together. Her parents started them mushroom hunting when she was about six...off to bag the delectable morel. She was lucky enough to take a few classes with Marilyn Shaw, the Rocky Mountain go-to person for all things mushroom (including poisonings). She learned to identify many more mushrooms than she had previously known, since some of her new favorites had not even grown in Michigan...the stunning and fabulous Boletus edulis, for example. Having all of these mycological treasures at hand, she really started to study. (David Arora's Mushrooms Demystified is the gold standard for educating yourself about mushrooms.) She learned to cook with the many different varieties she found, and had some extremely tasty eating! YUM! Nine years ago, she moved to the Central Oregon Coast, and the first group she joined was the Lincoln County Mycological Society. Once again in a new place, it seemed smart to hook up with people who knew the area, knew the mushrooms, and could fill in gaps in her knowledge. Through the Mycological Society, she has broadened her range of interest about mushrooms from just being a 'pot hunter' (translation, she wants to eat them!) to learning about mushrooms' role in gardening, in health, in how our world functions. It is a fascinating subject.