Love of plants draws homeless vet to class

LACEY, Thurston County — A homeless veteran who has lived in the woods for the past 22 years has been invited back to school.

Dean Simpson, a self-taught amateur botanist, is studying for exams after being invited to attend an enthnobotany class at St. Martin's College.

Alfredo Gomez-Beloz, an assistant biology professor who learned of Simpson through a colleague, asked him to attend. Simpson, 62, a veteran of the Korean and Vietnam wars, has survived more than two decades without help from shelters or soup kitchens, and chooses to live off the land, or whatever he can dredge up from the garbage.

Using found materials, he built a makeshift cabin in the woods off Interstate 5 in Lacey.

"Everything you see out here's been recycled," he said. "Glass, wood, everything they throw away in the Dumpster."

After arriving in the area, Simpson became interested in surrounding plants and posted labels throughout the woods with a description of the plants and how to cook them.

He gleaned the Latin names of many plants from books, but he's not versed in subjects such as cell structure, which he can learn about in the class.

"I know it sounds weird, a bum going to college," Simpson said. "You know, I've got a 10-cent brain and I'm taking a $35 class."

Simpson doesn't pay for, nor will he receive credit for, the class, but friend Perry Walton-Weber sees it as an opportunity for him to re-enter society. Walton-Weber is a founder of Homeless Backpacks, which distributes necessities to people living on the streets.

Like some veterans, Simpson keeps mostly to himself. He had been living off a military check of $137 a month because he didn't think he was eligible for other benefits when he met Walton-Weber's husband, Jim Weber. The former Lacey city councilman had been bow hunting when the two met and formed a friendship.