Happy 17th Birthday Elk Mountain Academy!

I am pleased to announce that on January 10, 2011 Elk Mountain Academy will celebrate its 17th birthday and we have a lot planned for our special day. We will be hosting a party on campus open to all students, parents, siblings, grandparents, and other folks interested in the work we do. In addition, one of our students has volunteered to tell his story in which he will share what it was like for him before coming to Elk Mountain, what happened along his journey at Elk Mountain, and what it is like for him now.

I want to share some history with you on our beginning of Elk Mountain…

Lon Woodbury and Linda Shaffer first toured our property outside of Clark Fork, Idaho before we enrolled our first student in 1994. They referred us to other consultants which really helped to get us started. In 30 days (by February 10, 1994) we were full with four students! At the time, this was full because we only had room for four.

I remember being scared and thinking "What to do next?"

So, the students and I built a much larger house. Our first home was 1600 square feet and this new building, that we named Summit House, was 5,080 square feet and took a year for us to build! When we were finished we were able to enroll 12 students and once again we were full in 30 days!

Then Loretta, "my dear wife", suggested if we went to 25 students we could become a fully accredited high school. Since we were fully self contained academically this made sense. We went to work building and a year later we opened Achievement House and grew to 25 students. Again this took about 30 days, so in three years we went from 4 students to 25. We stayed at that size until 2001 when we started Elk Creek Academy in Heron, Montana.

The idea was to serve the same kind of student but with Christian academics and a Christ centered core. We built a 14 bedroom, 19 bath facility. It took 5 years to complete. The student population never grew past 14 students and the building was too beautiful to not utilize fully, so we decided to combine the schools and now the new larger building is fully used!

Over the years our focus has not changed. We want the young men we serve to EXPERIENCE having fun in sobriety! We have used dirt bikes from day one. Many of our students have never ridden a motorcycle and did not even know how to shift the gears! Both of our campuses have dirt bike tracks and students earn the privilege to ride by completing their step work, homework, and chores. In addition to motorcycles, we have a boat available for waterskiing in the summer, an on campus snow board park and indoor skate board ramps. We have also utilized Schweitzer ski resort for skiing and snowboarding for the past 17 years. Fishing is available at Elk Creek which runs right through our property and the forest and woods offer abundant hiking experiences.

AA and NA meetings remain the core of our program. In fact, the young people's meeting we started in Clark Fork years ago had over 40 kids in attendance last week!

Miracles have happened as a result of sobriety!

And yet things can also happen tragically, as we have had five of our past students pay the ultimate price and have died due to their return to alcohol and drug abuse after leaving Elk Mountain Academy. We have had 497 young men in our programs over the years and while it is heartwarming to hear from guys doing well (I spoke with a young man Linda referred last year that was celebrating 15 years clean and sober), it is sad when we lose. I know it is the nature of the beast, but we are absolutely committed to doing everything we can to help.

One of our graduates has graduated from Harvard, and another one is teaching at UC Davis after graduating from UCSC. If they are sober and self supporting I consider it a win!

Elk Mountain Academy is a therapeutic boarding school that works with young men, ages 14-18 years old who struggle with substance and alcohol abuse, behavioral issues and academic deficiencies; offering their students a program based on 12 step recovery, experiential therapy and life skills for sober living and sober fun.