Offering “Healthy Solutions”

Kathryn Guylay has incorporated Healthy Solutions of Sun Valley. See healthysolutionsofsv.com for more.

STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

Kathryn Guylay leans over her tea and muffin as she addresses the guests for her next radio show.

"I always tell people: Smile when you talk into the microphone. Your attitude shines through on the radio," she says.

Guylay began her Healthy Solutions radio show, which airs from noon to 1 p.m. two Tuesdays a month on KDPI—89.3 FM-- in January.

Her mission: To improve the wellness of children, families, the workplace and the larger community. For this program, she has tapped Tira Scott, who is in charge of the YMCA's new greenhouse project, and Charles Majuri, a child psychologist who uses horticulture therapy in his work with children.

"I take a lot of care making sure my guests feel like my guests," Guylay says. "I'll talk about what directions we might go so they feel comfortable. I don't want scripts because you can tell when something is scripted."

Scott immediately lays her anxieties on the table.

"I want to talk about children and the relationships we build at the Y and how the new greenhouse is an extension of that," she says. “What makes me nervous is when someone asks about construction or budgets. I'm not a contractor."

"We won't go there," Guylay promises.

"I also don't want to talk about saving the world," Scott adds. "I'm here to talk about working with children in Blaine County. If we start one community at a time, it will grow into something magnificent."

Guylay became a management consultant following college, helping firms like AT&T and Motorola solve problems, develop growth strategies and design compensation plans.

She left the corporate world to raise her two children and ended up co-founding Nurture--a program helping low-income people in Chicago projects learn how to source fresh foods and eat healthier.

She introduced Nurture's philosophy into Wood River Valley schools after moving here a few years ago.

She decided to tackle her own radio show after appearing on Julie Johnson’s show with Community School students.

"I had so much fun. I felt a calling. I decided the next stage of my life will be about voice--getting people's message out there."

That includes writing a motivational book drawing on the experiences of such skiers as Nordic Olympic racers Kikkan Randall and Betsy Youngman and Ketchum's Skier X racer Langely McNeal.

"The business world has so much to learn from these athletes," Guylay says. "Langely told me about how she'd visualize herself as an avatar. She would open her eyes and they'd be glowing. She would click into her boots and be one with her skis. And then she'd go jump 150 feet, like a superhero. Everyday people can take bits and piece of this and be their own avatar."

Guylay’s radio show features experts from the Wood River Valley and beyond as it tackles such subjects as organic gardening, cultivating mindfulness in children and using cultivating mindfulness and acupuncture to alleviate allergies.

"I did a lot of research on how to make these people comfortable in front of the mic,” she says. “I attended a seminar at the Wellness conference where the speaker put someone in the front of the room and said, 'Tell me about yourself.' The woman froze. Then he said, 'Tell me about when you were 9 years old.’ And she couldn't stop talking."

A week later the conversation moves from Velocio’s to KDPI radio studio opposite Backwoods Mountain Sports on Ketchum’s Main Street.

Guylay plays a song from “Wall-E” with an inspirational message about the environment. And she turns to Charles Majuri: “I read an article years ago that getting your hands in the dirt is the equivalent of taking Prozac.”

Depression, ADHD--all these conditions and more are treatable within a garden environment, replies Majuri, who conducted horticulture therapy projects at mental health centers in Oregon. Studies show that even people with broken bones heal more quickly if they can view a garden—or a scenic landscape like Baldy—for five minutes a day.

“Gardening gives us hope,” interjects Scott, as she talked about the anticipation of waiting for sugar snap peas that the kids at the Y have planted in coconut husks.

Guylay asks Majuri about the book he wrote called “Go Green Kids” that Scott is using with her greenhouse program.

Majuri tells her that the book was inspired by his grandfather, an organic gardener from Italy who used gardening to teach such values as love and kindness.

"I love that it's not complicated," adds Scott. "Every other garden book I got I threw out because they were so complicated."

Scott tells the story of how she took a lesson from the book about warmth, as she told the plants she loved them.

“We put on classical music for our tomato plants,” Guylay responds. “If they grow in sterile environment they don’t grow as well.

“I can tell you with two children of my own that gardening can provide a nice balance to all the digital things we surround ourselves with. It can help with stress, as well,” she adds

Guylay always tries to end her programs with action items that inspire her listeners to do something.

This particular program lends itself to a myriad of possibilities--sprinkle a few seeds in yogurt cups and in three weeks you can have lettuce, she notes.

“The radio program is truly like having a conversation with friends,” she says. “And listeners don’t have to be in the car or by their radio when the program airs. They can listen from anywhere in the world, at any time, by going to kdpifm.org.”

COMING UP

On Tuesday, April 28, Kathryn Guylay will talk with her friend—Emmy Award-winning actress and motivational speaker Jen Weigel—about her upcoming appearance at the Sun Valley Wellness Festival. She will also air a pre-recorded interview with Olympic Nordic skiers Kikkan Randall and Liz Stephen.

Guests during May and early June include Kami Miller, who will talk about Nurture’s nutrition education programs at Alturas Elementary School; Dr. Scott Kelly, who wrote “What I Learned From You,” and Trish Hughes, a cookbook author from Iowa and creator and creator of eatyourbeets.com.

You can listen to Guylay’s interview with Scott and Majuri at http://www.healthykidsideas.com/kids-garden-charles-majuri/

Kathryn Guylay preps Tira Scott and Charles Majuri.

Tira Scott says she dislikes using the word "curriculum" when it comes to the Y's greenhouse program because, she says, she doesn’t want it to feel like school but rather a place where kids can socialize and have fun.