Vickey Wheeler
Coosa River Watershed

Vickey is a founding member of Friends of Big Canoe Creek and has worked extensively with them on mission development, fundraising and communications since 1990. She is part of the team that initially envisioned and helped guide efforts to establish Forever Wild’s Big Canoe Creek Nature Preserve in Springville.

 

She is President of the Board of Directors for The Friends of Big Canoe Creek and co-convenes The Springville Gathering, hosts of a yearly Environmental Dinner, bringing the Arts and Sciences together for conversation and collaboration.

 

A lifelong artist and educator, Vickey has exhibited, taught and implemented art based programs in schools and other institutions. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Alabama and both a Masters in Early Childhood Education and a post graduate Educational Specialist degree from UAB.

 

Vickey’s mother’s family owned the aquifer spring that is at the headwaters of Five-Mile Creek and her grandmother ran Harvey’s Florist in the fieldstone house on the property. It was always a priority for her family to protect the spring, which is now preserved within Reed Harvey Park.

 

A creative visionary, Vickey has kept volumes of personal illustrations and narratives for decades that manifest the relationships between natural and spiritual realms, and is continuing to explore the connectivity between Aesthetics and Environmental Integrity.