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.
Lauren French
President
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.
Carol Coakley
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.
Fred Hanss
Vice President
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.
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.
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.
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 a
Aryn Rivers
Board Member
Aryn Rivers was born and raised in Canton before attending college in Massachusetts. They grew up going to TAUNY events and have cultivated a love of traditional arts, including weaving, quilting, pottery, and traditional folk music. They hope to expand youth engagement in TAUNY and the North Country more broadly.
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.
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.
Michele Nadder
Board Member
Michele began watercolor painting two years ago when she enrolled in an inspiring SOAR’s class. Having initially studied piano performance, she discovered that the two forms of art shared a common ground. Simply, the expression of self, when it comes from the heart, can be perceived by the listeners or the viewers through their hearts.
This was an exciting finding as it opened the door to a new way in which to serve the community. She’s hoping to help TAUNY to continue and prosper as a place for all members of the community to enjoy a warm mutual regard.
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.