Club Officers

  • Sarah DeLong-Duhon

    PRESIDENT

    iNaturalist, Instagram

    I’ve been running around in the woods since I was a kid, but it wasn’t until early 2017 that I discovered the wonders of mushroom hunting. I loved it so much that I did independent research on fungi phylogenetics as an undergrad and then a master’s student. I am grateful to have so many opportunities to share my experience with others. The woods is and always will be my happy place.

  • Caleb Musser

    VICE PRESIDENT

    I was first introduced to mushroom hunting as a teenager by my now wife, Samantha. We have spent countless spring days looking for morels since. This developed into an interest in finding more wild edibles and from there, a passion to learn all I could about the fungi world. Today, I serve as a moderator and admin on several mushroom-related pages through social media. In my spare time you will find me on a foray with my family or friends, identifying mushrooms on Facebook, or in front of my microscope. I am excited to share my knowledge and experience with the members of the Prairie States Mushroom Club.

  • Elizabeth Miner

    SECRETARY

    I spent most of my childhood in the woods of my family’s North Iowa acreage. An early childhood educator by trade, I only recently fell in love with mushrooms and now frequently visit the woods on adventures with my niece and nephew. I love that my newfound knowledge has me seeing my favorite places in new ways and feel fortunate to pass it on to the next generation of fungi enthusiasts.

  • Art McBreen

    TREASURER

    iowamushroom@gmail.com

    My adult daughter took me on my first foray, hunting chanterelles in Oregon’s Coast Range in the fall of 2018. While I enjoyed it immensely, it was still a few more years before my fungal fascination took a firm hold. When it did though, it won me over completely. Nowadays I can think of nothing better than wandering the woods to see what discoveries might be waiting. It’s collecting for study I like best; the finding and documenting, then at home working the identification keys to learn exactly what I’ve found. When I was younger I was always drawn to science, but ended up going down a different career path. Mycology offers the opportunity to follow that road not taken, and with PSMC I get to do it in good company.

  • Loulwa Soweid

    BOARD MEMBER AT-LARGE

    During the COVID-19 quarantine period, I found myself taking longer and more frequent walks in the parks near my house, and I began to notice mushrooms of all shapes, sizes, and strangeness fruiting from the soil, mulch, and trunks of living and dead trees. I have not stopped seeing them, or seeking them out, since.

    While I absolutely love hunting for mushrooms for hours on end, my second favorite mushroom-related activity is writing about them, be it poems and prose pieces inspired by mycology, Featured Fungus blogposts about the newest fungus that fascinates me, or articles for the PSMC newletter Symbiosis.

Committee Chairs

  • Clay Packard

    BOARD MEMBER
    CHAIR, FORAY COMMITTEE

    Growing up in Indianapolis, Indiana I was ALWAYS outside, especially in the woods. A love of camping, fishing and canoeing with my cousins in summers past became my favorite hobby as an adult.  And in all of that time spent in my beloved forests, I have very few memories of seeing wild mushrooms. Skip ahead to March 2023, living in Iowa now, and I decide I'm going to learn to find morels. What an amazing, eye-opening experience! Hoping to find morels, and finding them, but then SO much more, from early spring all the way into winter; edible and toxic species alike.  Now on any trip into the woods, I see wild mushrooms growing almost ANYWHERE I look!!

    For me, 2023 was all about self - directed exploration and learning about the wonderfully mysterious and complex mycology surrounding me. In 2024 however, I was blessed to find the Prairie States Mushroom Club and am honored to be the incoming Foray Committee Chair person for 2025. Please join us for any or all of our Forays and educational events scheduled throughout 2025. These are great experiences for both novice and experienced mushroom hunters alike!

  • Dave Layton

    BOARD MEMBER
    CHAIR, NEWSLETTER COMMITTEE

    davelayton54@gmail.com

    Dave Layton has been hunting wild mushrooms for over 50 years. He's eaten well over 100 kinds of fungi and enjoys eating dozens of tasty Iowa species every year. He enjoys fungi in many more ways than eating however. Fungi’s many roles in the ecosystem have always fascinated him. However, recent discoveries about many ways fungi can make our world a better place have taken mushrooms from beyond Dave’s fascination to growing his sense of purpose. His joy of learning about mushrooms expanded when he joined PSMC in 2001. He's a past President of the club and current editor of its newsletter Symbiosis.

  • Justin Gilbertson

    BOARD MEMBER
    CHAIR, FORAY COMMITTEEE

    I’ve always liked eating mushrooms my whole life, but my fantastic fungal fascination didn’t take hold until 2022 or so when I was dating a woman who was vegan, and she got me interested in the lifestyle. I got into self-sustainability too and wanting to learn how to grow my own food (finally - after being a chef for 10 years, I never did). Then it clicked, I LOVE to eat mushrooms! If I’m on this self-sustainable vegan journey, I HAVE to figure out how to forage and differentiate what mushrooms I can and can’t eat. So I started down the fungal rabbit hole and the more I studied and hiked around looking for them the more I fell in love with them. I’ve found that I’m fascinated with how diverse they are, what they do/can do for our world, the sheer amount that aren’t discovered and learning the scientific names and how to ID of all of them. My main fungal loves are identification, macro photography and just a simple hike in the woods getting lost looking for them. I am excited to learn as much as I can about fungi in my lifetime and hopefully teach my kids, grandkids (eventually) and anyone I come in contact with about the awesomeness of the fungal world. 

  • Amanda Flaata

    BOARD MEMBER
    CHAIR, ARTS COMMITTEE

  • CHAIR, WEBSITE COMMITTEE

    This position is vacant.

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