Dr. Kevin Kelleher is a family physician in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia and a national spokesman for free clinics. A lifelong backpacker, canoeist, and a locally recognized painter, he has been teaching tenkara since its introduction into the US and is a member of the Asiatic Society of Japan.
Misako Ishimura was born in Osaka, Japan, but now resides in the Ozark Mountains near the White River where she teaches fly-casting and tying. She has been captain of the Japanese FIPS-Mouche World Fly Fishing team since 2000 and was a charter director of the International Women Fly Fishers and is currently their goodwill ambassador. Her instructors have included Joan Wulff and Japanese tenkara master Dr. Hisao Ishigaki, and her coordination of the Catskill Fly Fishing Center and Museum exhibition “Made in Japan” helped introduce tenkara to the US.
