Eddie O’Leary, “Hiking the Appalachian Trail” (February 28) at Starmount Farms CC

Eddie O’Leary is an award winning filmmaker, adventurer, and 2017 Appalachian Trail thru-hiker.

Eddie grew up in Greensboro and attended Southern Guilford High School. After graduating from Appalachian State University with a B.S. in Electronic Media in 2009, Eddie founded a video production company called Bearded Productions.  In 2012, he travelled to Sierra Leone to film a documentary focused on the rebuilding of a small village in the wake of civil war. His efforts on this project earned him Best Short Documentary at the 2013 Lucent Awards. In 2013, Eddie also began working as a video producer for the Children’s Home Society of North Carolina. During his time with CHS, his work was recognized when his film “House to Home” won Best Picture at the 2016 Lucent Awards.

Throughout his life, Eddie devoted much of his free time to the outdoors, especially by section hiking the Appalachian Trail. On May 16, 2017, he began the fulfillment of his lifelong dream of a thru-hike when he departed the summit of Springer Mountain in Georgia for a 2,200 mile journey to Mt. Katahdin in Maine.