If you’ve ever attended a Gauley Fest or Ocoee Rodeo, chances are you’ve seen and perhaps met Nancy Gilbert. Nancy, along with her husband and AW board of director Joe Greiner, have been volunteering tirelessly at both events for many years. You’ll usually find Nancy at the Gauley Fest entrance and registration and scoring tables at the Ocoee Rodeo, so stop by and say “hi” and be sure to thank her.
Nancy began paddling after her fiftieth birthday as a means of enhancing her love of the outdoors. Her first river trip was on the Middle Haw River near Chapel Hill NC in
Dec
> 1992. A number of friends brought their spare cold weather gear, spread
it
> out on the bridge railing and Nancy suited for her first trip with some of
> this and and some of that. She got by “with a little help from her
friends”.
>
> Despite a broken cheekbone on her first Ocoee trip, she has held in there
> and boats about 25-50 days a year. Her favorite runs are anything in the
Cumberland Plateau especialyy the Tiny Piney of Rhea County, and also the
> Little River Of Tennessee (in the Smokies), the Tellico, section III of
the
> Chattooga (at about 2.2) and the Lower Yough (at about 2.0). Nancy has
> been to Guatemala twice, and Nepal and Bhutan once each. And she has gone
> forth from her favorite SE rivers to New York, Quebec, Washington State,
and
> California to boat in those areas.
>
> Now retired from a computer software (NOT a dot.com) company, she has
always
> wanted to give something back to the sport that helps her get to places
she
> otherwise might not go.