BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Traditional Arts in Upstate New York is guided by a dedicated Board of Directors, responsible for the organization’s financial stewardship and governance. The board members represent a diverse range of professional leadership across various fields throughout the North Country.
Ruth McWilliams
President
Ruth McWilliams (President), South Colton, grew up on a family-owned dairy farm in Lisbon. After 30 years of working for federal rural development and natural resource agencies, she and her husband now divide their time between Northern New York and Virginia. Since 2009, when she joined the Board, Ruth’s appreciation for all aspects of TAUNY and its North Country region has expanded. As a teaching artist, she also has helped TAUNY engage in the growing barn quilt movement in St. Lawrence County and beyond.
Jackie Sauter
Vice President
Jackie Sauter (Vice President) has long been involved with TAUNY, as board member, supporter, and collaborator. As manager (now retired) of content at North Country Public Radio she worked with TAUNY to produce audio and digital features exploring aspects of life through food, music traditions, and oral histories. A graduate of SLU and resident of the town of Russell, she is the parent of an adult son with Down syndrome and an advocate for people with disabilities and their families in the North Country.
Fran Moore
Treasurer
Fran Moore (Treasurer), Saratoga Springs, joined the Board in 2020. Now retired from the corporate life of Information Technology at IBM, she has time to express her creative side through fiber arts (including knitting and spinning) and food-as-art (delivering several “Tea Talks” and demonstrations at TAUNY and other organizations in NNY). Fran’s other volunteer experiences include: grant writing; awareness building and fund raising; governance; and program development and delivery.
Michale Glennon
Clerk
Michale Glennon joined the board in 2021. As a wildlife ecologist and Senior Research Scientist at the Paul Smith’s College Adirondack Watershed Institute, she is engaged in research projects related to land use, wildlife, climate change, and more. Her fiber art pursuits led her to TAUNY, originally via a knitting contest and later a data art exhibit. She is a native of the Adirondacks and now lives in Ray Brook with her husband Scott, two children, and pets. She hopes to increase TAUNY’s reach and visibility in the park.
Carol Coakley
Board Member
Carol Coakley grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs and moved to Canton in 1978. She is well known for her involvement in the family hardware business in Canton and Saranac Lake. Her early career was in nursing,and she worked as a prepared childbirth instructor. Over the years she has been on the board of the Friends of the Canton Free Library, Canton Day Care Center, and Grasse River Heritage. She enjoys gardening, travel, and keeping up with her daughters and granddaughters.
Jane Desotelle
Board Member
Jane Desotelle has a longtime affiliation with TAUNY through her holiday wreath and craft projects and more recently, through a ‘grow and tell’ project. She grew up in Plattsburgh, where she helped her parents raise and sell gladioli and berries from their garden. She is the founder of Underwood Herbs in Plattsburgh as well as the Plattsburgh Botanical Sanctuary, an educational garden with hundreds of plants. She also is involved with the Adirondack Farmer’s Market Cooperative.
Dr. Liliana Trevizán
Board Member
Liliana is a Spanish professor in the Department of Modern Languages, educating SUNY Potsdam students for the past 25 years, guided by her strong convictions for democracy and equality. Born in the southernmost city in the world, Trevizán spent her youth in Punta Arenas, Chile, located where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Pacific on the Strait of Magellan. The weather was often so harsh on the southern tip of Chile that intense winds would tear the roofs right off of buildings. “It’s a beautiful, but very powerful landscape,” Trevizán recalled. After founding a school and working as a teacher in Santiago for several years, Trevizán moved to the United States and went on to get her master’s degree and Ph.D. in Romance languages from the University of Oregon in Eugene. Her expertise in women’s literature, feminism and women’s movements in Latin America formed the backbone of her dissertation. She started teaching at SUNY Potsdam in the fall of 1992, just recently surpassing the 25-year mark on campus.
Kelley Rae Martin
Board Member
Kelly is a nonfiction writer and retired English teacher from the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia living in the Adirondacks. Immersed in traditional arts growing up, she also taught in multicultural programs where she experienced the wonders of traditional arts across various cultures, understanding the need to preserve those traditions. Additionally, she’s an avid genealogist and has written a memoir about her family. She hopes to use her knowledge and skills to grow TAUNY’s audience in the Tug Hill area of New York.
Martha Foley Smith
Board Member
Martha Foley Smith of Canton, is retired from North Country Public Radio where she helped found and grow the news department, reporting on regional identity, human interest, and issues of life and work in the Adirondack North Country. She grew up on Mt. McGregor, an Adirondack foothill in rural Saratoga County, and she traces her family roots to Croil’s Island and northern St. Lawrence County. In and out of the Adirondacks since childhood, she’s now a knitter and gardener but says “expert at neither!”.
Jonathan Schaller
Board Member
Jonathan Schaller of Canton is a transplant to the North Country from the woods of northwestern Pennsylvania. A former K12 instrumental music teacher, he teaches future and current music teachers as an assistant professor at the Crane School of Music, SUNY Potsdam. His scholarly work explores ways local culture can and should be acknowledged, sustained, and created through school arts’ curricula and pedagogy. He finds creative outlets through knitting, quilting, and music making on the saxophone and his laptop.
Fred Hanss
Board Member
Fred lives in Hannawa Falls with his wife Lisa. He has deep family roots in St. Lawrence County. Over the last 40 years, he has been active in housing and community revitalization organizations, most recently as the Village of Potsdam’s Director of Planning and Development. He has a lifelong interest in North American history, traditional Adirondack crafts, camping, canoeing, fly fishing and hunting. He serves as an advisor and board member for several local charitable organizations.
Rainbow Crabtree
Board Member
Rainbow joined the TAUNY board in 2025 after 21 years as co-owner of Nature’s Storehouse in Canton. She is passionate about building a community where people are excited to live, work, and play, and she loves the gusto with which TAUNY promotes and preserves local and regional art and skills. Rainbow expresses her own creativity through pressed flower art, cooking, music, and carpentry. Her favorite place to be is outdoors in any season.
Lauren French
Board Member
Retired Superintendent of Gouverneur Central School,
enjoys a hobby farm of chickens, bees, blueberries, vegetables, and
flowers. Dedicated to a life of community service, she is active in the
church, Children’s Home of Jefferson County, and Gouverneur
Foundation. Wife, mother, and grandmother, her free time is in the
woods, fields, or a kayak. Mentoring students and assisting people in
need is a passion.
Danielle Edwards
Board Member
Danielle is Canadian by birth but North Country raised. Currently, she lives in Colton with her husband and two chickens. She’s an adjunct teacher of French at SUNY Potsdam and St Lawrence University while working on truly being retired from teaching. She was born into a family of woodworkers, cooks, seamstresses, carpenters, gardeners and crafters. She enjoys knitting, singing, traveling, all things French, puttering, reading books, skiing, and hanging out with her sons. She’s been involved with the Potsdam Community Chorus and currently sings with the St Lawrence Choral Society. She’s always enjoyed visiting TAUNY and does most of her gift buying here, and is excited to be part of the wonderful organization.