About The Organization

Jim Stokely grew up in Newport, Tennessee and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Yale University with exceptional distinction in American Studies.   He later received an MBA from Stanford University, and embarked upon a 25-year corporate career in Human Resources for The Hay Group, Brown-Forman Corporation, and Sylvania.  In 2011 he and his wife Anne moved back to the southern mountains and now live in Weaverville, North Carolina.  He is the author of Constant Defender: The Story of Fort Moultrie and co-author of Mountain Home: A Pictorial History of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Jim also edited and wrote the introduction for Wilma Dykeman's memoir Family of Earth: A Southern Mountain Childhood.

Elaine Smyth moved to Asheville with her husband, David Smyth, in August 2014, from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where she served as Head of the Louisiana State University Libraries’ Special Collections division and interim Dean of Libraries. A graduate of the Colorado College, she earned her Master of Librarianship from the University of Washington.  While at LSU, she worked to promote social and environmental justice through the use of archival materials, including the digital project “Free People of Color in Louisiana: Revealing an Unknown Past”.  She enjoys hiking, throwing pots, and gardening, and also volunteers with the Botanical Gardens at Asheville.

Dirk Wilmoth was named CFO/Vice President of Business and Finance for Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College in 2016. He retired in December of 2024. Prior to joining A-B Tech, Dirk was Vice President for Operations and Vice President for Business and Finance at Emory & Henry College in southwest Virginia. Beginning in 1989, he held CFO positions at Pfeiffer University, Montreat College, and McDowell Technical Community College. Dirk Wilmoth has additional higher education experience in the areas of information technology, advancement and student life, and also taught journalism and organizational theory at Warren Wilson College.

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Aisha Adams is the founder of the consulting firm Equity Over Everything. She has played a pivotal role in training equity advocates; fostering inclusivity; cultivating policy, practice, and procedural changes; and influencing the entrepreneurial ecosystem. In 2020 she received the Tzedeck Impact Award, the WomanUP Women Entrepreneur Best in Business Award, the Jane Renfroe Coach of the Year Award from Mountain Bizworks, and the Martin Luther King Award from the MLK Association of Asheville and Buncombe County. Her other ventures include hosting “The Asheville View” talk show and managing “Nappy Thoughts,” a personal blog followed by thousands on social media. Aisha earned her BA degree in English from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and her MS degree in Adult Education.

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A native of Western North Carolina and a graduate of Western Carolina University, Becky Anderson has worked in community and economic development as Founding Director of Buncombe County Child Development, Director of Community Development for Land of Sky Regional Council of Governments, Asheville Downtown Development Director, and Industrial Recruiter for the Asheville Chamber of Commerce.  Committed to the region's cultural heritage, she helped establish HandMade in America and served as Founding Director. She also serves on the boards of the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation, the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area, and Friends of the Western North Carolina Museum of History.

Kate Bashford Epsen lives in Asheville and has dedicated her career working to advance clean energy and climate policy. Currently she is a project manager for a statewide clean energy workforce development program at Appalachian State University. Prior to moving here, she was a policy advisor for New England’s electric grid operator, as well as the Executive Director of New Hampshire's leading renewable energy advocacy and educational non-profit. She also had a brief stint as a pig farmer. Kate has an MA in energy policy from Columbia University and a BA in environmental and economic policy from Boston University.

Ellen Carr is a high-yield portfolio manager at Barksdale Investment Management, a majority-women-owned company.  She is also an adjunct professor of finance at Columbia Business School, as well as a board member of the National Public Radio Foundation, the UNC Asheville Foundation, and the Community Foundation of Western North Carolina.  Ellen has a BA from Harvard University and an MBA from Northwestern University. She recently co-authored Undiversified: The Big Short in Investment Management, a book on women in investment management.  Ellen splits her time among Asheville, rural Tennessee, and New York.  She has one son, two cats, and a pandemic puppy.

Anne Chesky is the Executive Director of the Presbyterian Heritage Center in Montreat, North Carolina. She most recently served for four years as the Executive Director of the Western North Carolina Historical Association (now the Asheville Museum of History), preceded by eight years as the Executive Director of the Swannanoa Valley Museum and History Center in Black Mountain, North Carolina. Anne received her BA degree from UNC Asheville and holds MA degrees from Appalachian State University and the University of Georgia. She has published a number of local history books and writes a history column for the Asheville Citizen-Times.  In 2022 Anne received the Historic Resources Champion Award from the Historic Resources Commission of Asheville and Buncombe County.

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As a high school English teacher for over a decade, Dan Clare is a passionate public educator dedicated to Wilma Dykeman's belief in the power of the written and spoken word. After earning a BA in English from James Madison University and an MEd. from George Mason University in Virginia, Dan and his family relocated from Washington, D.C. to Asheville in 2015. When not in the classroom, Dan can be found performing music at local breweries, hiking the Blue Ridge Parkway, running, reading, and consuming vast quantities of steaming coffee on the sofa with Blanche and Rose (his family's two corpulent kitties) looking on. As a champion of "the power of place," Dan enjoys integrating Appalachian voices--from Thomas Wolfe to Wilma Dykeman to Frank X. Walker--into his English curriculum in the literature courses he teaches at Asheville High School.

Corinne M. Duncan has been the Director of Buncombe County Election Services (BCES) since 2020. She earned a BS in Environmental Science and an MS in Rangeland Ecology and Management at Oregon State University. Corinne has cultured and classified aquatic microbes, analyzed habitat data for the winter sage grouse, performed Thin Layer Chromatography for lichen identification, supervised the acquisition of native seeds for restoration projects, and maintained the USDA's national black cohosh plant collection. For five years, she owned and operated a GIS mapping and database management business. Based on this experience with geographical information systems, Corinne began her work with BECS as a GIS Specialist.

Sharon Fahrer is a recovered New Yorker with a background in geography and environmental planning, now reinvented as a local historian.  She co-founded History@Hand with Jan Schochet to document the history of Jewish businesses in downtown Asheville, creating The Family Store exhibit, book and walking tour. Since then, she lectures extensively and has written more than 30 interpretive history panels located throughout Asheville, as well as several books on Asheville’s Jewish history. She also leads history walking tours in downtown Asheville, Biltmore Village, Montford, and Riverside Cemetery. Sharon serves on the board of several nonprofits, including over 9 years with the Legacy.

Dr. Joseph Fox is the owner of Fox Management Consulting Enterprises, LLC.  He possesses an Ed.D. and an M.B.A. from Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, NC, and a B.S. degree in Business Administration from Pfeiffer University, Misenheimer, NC. Dr. Fox also possesses the Professional in Human Resources Management (PHR) National Certification, Global Achieve Leadership Training Certification, the Rural Entrepreneurship through Action Learning (REAL) Certification, and the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Workplace Certification. He is a life-long educator, mentor, and community advocate.

Jonathan McCoy is Director of Mars Hill University’s Center for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. He earned a BA in History and Political Science from Mars Hill College in 1992, an MA in History from North Carolina State University in 2000, and a Teacher Certification in Secondary Social Studies Education from East Carolina University in 2004. From 1992-2018 Jonathan worked in several high schools in the Durham County and Wake County Public Schools systems. He instructed at-risk students and coached football, wrestling and track. In 2018 he returned to his alma mater to teach history, and he continues to teach courses on World Geography/Regional Conflicts and North Carolina History & Government.

Sala Menaya-Merritt has worked as the City of Asheville’s Director of Equity and Inclusion since January of 2024. Sala has 25 years of experience in city, county, and state governments. Her roles have included the Diversion Services Program Manager with Buncombe County, the Organizational Development Administrator for the City of Savannah, and the Savannah Impact Director with the Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan Police Department. Earlier in her career, she worked in various community-based roles with the City of Los Angeles and the City of Hemet in southern California. In 2023, Ms. Menaya-Merritt served as the Impact Focus Area Administrator for the Community Reparations Commission, where she worked closely with commission members and staff Asheville and Buncombe County.

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Dr. Alison Ormsby is the Forest Specialist with Adventure Scientists, an international community-based conservation organization. She was a professor of Environmental Studies for 20 years and has had a variety of other work experiences – as an environment/parks Peace Corps Volunteer in Sierra Leone, a Fulbright scholar in India researching sacred forests, a journalist with the United Nations reporting on environmental treaties, and an educator with the Bronx Zoo/Wildlife Conservation Society.  Alison’s research interests include forest conservation, environmental education, ecovillages, park management, biocultural conservation through sacred natural sites, and global sustainability.  She has lived, conducted research in, and/or traveled to over 50 countries. 

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Becky Stone is a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She graduated from Vassar College, majoring inDrama. Becky earned a Master’s degree in Educational Counseling from Villanova Universityand worked for seven years as an elementary and middle school counselor in the PhiladelphiaSchool system. Becky and her husband, Pat, moved to Fairview, NC in 1978 where in 1990, they startedGreenPrints, a magazine of gardening stories. They published it for 31 years. During that time,Becky taught theater at Veritas Christian Academy. She also established herself as a regionalperformer, storyteller, actor, and Chautauqua scholar.