Historic Huguenot Street Welcomes Seven New Board Members

NEW PALTZ, NY (August 4, 2017) – Historic Huguenot Street is pleased to announce the addition of seven members to the Board of Trustees, as well as the reappointment of three existing Trustees. Veronica Claypool Butler, Alicia DeMarco, Bonney Hartley, Carol Johnson, Steven Miller, Laura Washington, and Dr. AJ Williams-Myers have been appointed for their first full three-year terms.

Veronica Claypool Butler currently serves as General Manager of The HistoryMakers, which records, preserves, and makes available the untold oral histories of both well-known and unsung African Americans. Claypool Butler’s extensive experience in the entertainment industry includes working as company manager for over twenty Broadway productions, as well as the original 1976 Houston Grand Opera European tour of Porgy and Bess. Later, in Los Angeles, she worked as general manager for such performances as Phantom of the Opera and Into the Woods, and was an assistant production auditor for the Columbia-Tri Star release The Fisher King. In 1997, she became managing director of Theatre Development Fund, the nation’s largest nonprofit theatrical service organization.

Alicia DeMarco, CPA, is the Director of Internal Audit and Control for the Ulster County Comptroller’s Office. A Summa Cum Laude graduate of SUNY New Paltz, she holds an MBA in Public Accounting with experience in tax, audit, and private sector accounting.

Bonney Hartley is a member of the Stockbridge-Munsee Community, Band of Mohican Indians, and currently serves as the Community’s Tribal Historic Preservation Officer. As such, she is responsible for compliance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (enacted 1966) and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (enacted 1990). Hartley’s office in Troy, NY, opened in 2015, minimizing the physical distance between the Stockbridge-Munsee Community and its ancestral Mohican sites.

Carol Johnson is a life-long New Paltz resident and coordinator of the Elting Memorial Library’s Haviland-Heidgerd Historical Collection. She is the co-author of New Paltz and the author of New Paltz Revisited, both part of the Images of America book series published by The History Press. Johnson also compiles a regular column for the New Paltz Times, highlighting historical local news published a century ago.

Steven Miller has forty years of experience as a museum curator, director, educator, writer and consultant. He has worked with six museums in the northeast and is currently the Executive Director of Boscobel House and Gardens. Miller also serves on the American Alliance of Museums’ accreditation visiting committee and is a regular contributor to its Museum magazine. He holds a BA from Bard College and an International Graduate Certificate in Principles of Conservation Science from the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) in Rome, Italy.

Laura Washington is the Director of Communications for the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which supports cultural and educational institutions. She has over two decades of public affairs and journalism experience, having previously served as Vice President for Communications at the New-York Historical Society. Washington holds a BA in History from Vassar College and holds an MS in Strategic Communications from Columbia University.

Dr. AJ Williams-Myers is a Professor Emeritus of Black Studies at SUNY New Paltz and holds a doctorate in history from the University of California at Los Angeles, with a concentration in African History. He is the former director of the New York African American Institute, a member of the New York State Freedom Trail Commission, and historian for the African Burial Ground Interpretive Center in NYC. Dr. Williams-Myers has authored a number of books, including On The Morning Tide: African Americans, History and Methodology In The Historical Ebb And Flow of Hudson River Society (Africa World Press, 2003) and has published extensively in national and international journals. He was recently honored as the namesake of the A. J. Williams-Myers African Roots Community Center Library in Kingston’s Rondout district.

Stephen Lumb, Dr. James Merrell, and Mary Etta Schneider have been reappointed for additional full three-year terms.

Stephen Lumb currently serves Treasurer of the Board and Chair of the Finance Committee, where he is instrumental in overseeing fiscal management, financial reporting, and investment management. Lumb received his MBA from Harvard University and has years of experience in budgeting for nonprofits. His passion for Huguenot Street derives from his heritage, as he is descended from every Huguenot founding family of New Paltz.

Dr. James Merrell, the Lucy Maynard Salmon Professor of History at Vassar College, received his Ph.D. at John Hopkins University. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, he has written two Bancroft Prize-winning books on early American history, making him only the fifth historian to have won the award twice. Dr. Merrell also serves as a member of the Scholarly Advisory Board and is Chair of the Scholarship Committee.

Mary Etta Schneider currently serves as President and Chair of the Board of Trustees. Ms. Schneider was a leader in the banking industry for close to 30 years and is now a committed advisor and fundraiser for major nonprofit organizations benefiting education, history, the arts, and other charitable causes. As a descendant of many of the Huguenot founders of New Paltz, Ms. Schneider is passionate about Huguenot Street and its mission. She also serves on the Advisory Board of the Hudson River Valley Institute.

Also continuing their service to the Board are existing Trustees Sanford Levy, Dr. Thomas Nyquist, Peter Deyoe, Rief Kanan, Vals Osborne, and Peter G. Rose.

A National Historic Landmark District, Historic Huguenot Street is a 501(c)3 non-profit that encompasses 30 buildings across 10 acres that was the heart of the original 1678 New Paltz settlement, including seven stone houses that date to the early eighteenth century.  It was founded in 1894 as the Huguenot Patriotic, Historical, and Monumental Society to preserve the nationally acclaimed collection of stone houses. Since then, Historic Huguenot Street has grown into an innovative museum, chartered as an educational corporation by the University of the State of New York, that is dedicated to protecting our historic buildings, conserving an important collection of artifacts and manuscripts, and promoting the stories of the Huguenot Street families, from the sixteenth century to today. 

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Contact
Kaitlin Gallucci
Director of Marketing & Communications
(845) 255-1660
media@huguenotstreet.org