Mrs. Bilgrave’s four decades of academic and camp experience span the United States. She is co-founder and former director of the Jemicy School of Baltimore, Maryland, a nationally acclaimed program of excellence for dyslexic students. She co-founded and directed Camp Bombadil, a day camp for dyslexic students, and Big Rock Creek Camp, a conference center and outdoor science program in the Angeles National Forest of Southern California. In addition, Mrs. Bilgrave was instrumental in founding the following programs for dyslexic children: Rawson-Saunders School, Austin, Texas; Durango Mountain Camp and the Liberty School, Durango, Colo.; Rocky Mountain Camp, Colorado; and Wolf Creek Camp, Texas.

Joyce has been a strong support from the early stages of development of our Potter's Ranch Dyslexia Camp, allowing us to visit her own dyslexia camp in Texas while she was teaching kids and having them go through her program. Showing us all the elements that make up the academic and camp program, where we sat in on the 1-on-1 sessions, Joyce freely provided her business model and knowledge for what we needed to do so that as many kids and families could get the proper support they need that a camp like this can provide. We are blessed to have her years of wisdom, experience, and passion for helping kids and their families with Dyslexia, ensuring our program is what it should be.

Holly Hightchew loves watching children learn. It is for this very reason that she selected to homeschool her own three children. It was only after her youngest daughter was diagnosed with profound dyslexia that Holly geared her passion and training to helping children with dyslexia successfully learn to read. She now works with dyslexic students and their parents providing reading assessments and training at The Learning Curve in Union, Ky. She also helps train parents, teachers and tutors to work with children using the Orton-Gillingham method. Holly has logged more than 500 hours working with dyslexic students, including her own. She is a Certified Barton Tutor.

Holly holds a BA in Communication and Business Administration from Northern Kentucky University. She worked as the Human Resources and Public Relations Manager for Gallatin Steel in Ghent, Kentucky. She has served on the Board of Trustees for the Gallatin County Public Library in Warsaw, Kentucky, and has volunteered many summers working as a camp counselor at Happy Hills Christian Service Camp in Carrollton, Kentucky. She and her husband, Bob, have been happily married for 27 years, and along with their three children, live in Warsaw, Kentucky.

Prior to moving to Kentucky six years ago, Mrs. Pam Hurless owned her own tutoring business in Lafayette, IN for over 20 years. As a classroom teacher, she has taught grades K-3, elementary reading resource, and adult remedial reading and math.

She has her BS in Elementary Education and Christian Education from Olivet Nazarene University. Continuing her education through varied programs, she is trained as an Educational Therapist through NILD (National Institute for Learning Development) and is Certified in Orton-Gillingham through the Dyslexia Training Institute. She has also completed the Screening For Dyslexia course by Susan Barton.

Mrs. Hurless’ passion has always been in helping the struggling student. As a Dyslexia Consultant, Mrs. Hurless also has the privilege of training others in better understanding dyslexia.

Rachelle Schmitz, MA, CCC-SLP, CALT, CDT graduated for the University of Cincinnati with a Master of Arts degree in Speech-Language Pathology in 2006.

Trainings and certifications include completion of an IMSLEC accredited Orton-Gillingham program (April 2010), Certified Academic Language Therapist (June 2016), and Certified Dyslexia Therapist (2017). Currently, she is a speech-language pathologist and reading specialist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in the Division of Speech-Language Pathology (8 years) and the Reading and Literacy Discovery Center (for the past 5 years).

Her main clinical specialty areas of language and reading disorders led her to fulfill a two-year vice president position for the International Dyslexia Association-Kentucky Branch from 2014-2016. She is currently an active member of the International Dyslexia Association.

Mrs. Sheila Levi retired as an English teacher after a 37-year career in education. Her career was dedicated to middle and high school students and helping adults to complete their education goals regardless of age.

Upon retirement, she developed a tutoring center called the Learning Curve to serve Northern Kentucky families. While working with many students who were struggling readers, her team learned more about the dyslexic student and best programs to help students succeed.

The need was great, so Union Pointe Academy was also created to provide a multi-sensory, Orton-Gillingham based program and school to serve dyslexic students and families.