Maxville Heritage Interpretive Center is a fully organized charitable organization. Our governing board members are a diverse group of national, regional, and local volunteers dedicated to educating the public about the significant history of Maxville, Oregon and similar communities in the Pacific Northwest.
Gwendolyn (Gwen) Trice
Founder and Executive Director
Gwen, a videographer, contributed key oral history interviews, photographs and transcripts for the OPB documentary, The Logger’s Daughter. Prior to Gwen’s efforts, there was no public record available of these pioneering individuals. A partial list of Gwen’s efforts include: Oregon Encyclopedia on-line [Maxville], Blackpast.org [Maxville], Preservation Magazine and The Forum Quarterly [National Trust for Historic Preservation], Oregon Historic Quarterly and a musical play called On to Higher Ground. Gwen served on the Oregon State Advocacy Commission of Black Affairs for 5 years, and currently serves on the State Historic Preservation Committee. Gwen was a recipient of the Oregon Women of Achievement Award in 2015, and a nationally certified interpretive guide (NAI) 2017.
Dani Savage
Board Chair
Dani Savage is an entrepreneur, known in her community as a “Jackie-Of-All-Trades”. She spends most of her time learning and applying new skills and engaging with her community. She and her partner own and operate a rapidly expanding hand-crafted goods business (The Girls Of Riverwoods HCG). In between running her business and parenting her children, she serves as a board member for the Maxville Heritage Interpretive Center. Dani’s background in creating training programs and public speaking places her in a key role within the Education and Arts Program, aimed at cultivating vibrant ethnic studies and immersing the community in local cultural history.
Sandra Jones
Board Vice Chair
Sandra is a fourth generation Arkansas family farming daughter, born and raised in St Louis, politically shaped in California and South Carolina. Her career spans many disciplines including land use and environmental education, community-based forestry, community economic development, attorney, educator and mediator.
She served as a Legal Services Corp. attorney for 17 years, and in response to Hurricane Hugo and the Loma Prieta Earthquake in 1989, she established the National LSC Disaster Relief Working Group. Sandra is a founding board member of the Black Family Land Trust and the Fund for Southern Communities, and she directed the Land Use & Environmental Education Program at Penn Center. She currently also serves on the board of the MN Justice Foundation.
Robert Crawford
Board Treasurer
The partial list of Bob’s community involvement includes: Silver Creek Irrigation Ditch Improvement Company (38 years), Boy Scouts of America (30 years), Wallowa County Rotary Club (22 years), Vale, OR Chamber of Commerce (12 years, President for 2 years), Kiwanis Club (12 years), Lions Club (12 years), Flora School Education Center Board Member (12 years), 4H Leader (10 years), the Future Farmers of America (FFA) and more.
Bob has received many awards such as: Silver Beaver from Boy Scouts of America, OMSI Science Teacher of the Year in 1966, FFA Honorary Degree, Three Vale Chamber Awards, Citizen of the Year – Vale, OR 1987, Three Vale School District Recognition Award, Two Vale Lions Club Award, plus several Wallowa County Rotary Club Awards.
Lisa Arkin
Board Secretary
Lisa Arkin is dedicated to placing racial and social justice at the forefront of all environmental protection and climate resiliency policies. As an example, Arkin stewarded the adoption of Oregon’s Environmental Justice Framework by the State Legislature in 2021. She has served as appointed member of a number of commissions and workgroups to ensure the inclusion of core environmental justice considerations. Arkin is the granddaughter of Russian-Ukrainian Jewish immigrants who fled pogroms and persecution to pursue their dream of becoming farmers and dedicates herself to the values of taking action to repair the world.
Carl Wilmsen
Board Member
Carl Wilmsen, Ph.D., is a member of the Board of Directors for the Maxville Heritage Interpretive Center (MHIC). Dr. Wilmsen was Program Director of Community Forestry and Environmental Research Partnerships, a nationwide fellowship program based at the University of California, Berkeley. He has served on the advisory boards of several community forestry groups and evaluated sustainable agriculture programs. He has authored several journal articles and book chapters on social justice in the management of U.S. public lands, race and the environment, oral history methodology and participatory research. He was also the lead editor of Partnerships for Empowerment: Participatory Research for Community-Based Natural Resource management (Earthscan, 2008)
Michelle Banks
Board Member
Michelle Banks has over twenty five years of small museum volunteer experience and is a retired fire service professional with over thirty years of emergency medical and emergency management experience. Embodying the pioneering spirit of the African-American firefighter, Michelle Banks joined the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) as a Paramedic in 1984. She is the LAFD’s third uniformed African-American woman, second African-American female Paramedic, and the first Special Assistant to the Fire Chief. Michelle is Co-Founder and President of the African American Firefighter Museum.
Ms. Banks’ dedication to enhancing the community’s well-being has been acknowledged by a variety of sources, including a 2023 Los Angeles County Commendation from Supervisor Solis, California Senator Curren D. Prices Jr.s’ 2013 Hero Award, and the Los Angeles City Women of Courage Award in 2000. She is a licensed State of California Paramedic; and has earned a MA in Organizational Leadership from Woodbury University and a BS in Community Health Administration from the University of California, Davis.
David Casteal
Board Member
David Casteal has been coaching and teaching children for 23 years. A Florida native, David attended the University of Alabama on a full football scholarship earning a BA in communication. After graduation, David continued his athletic career in Europe for two years before earning a Masters degree in reading from Whitworth University. David also holds a PhD in cultural studies; spending extensive time in Africa studying West African drum and dance.
Dr. Casteal was the director of the drumming group KuUmba; seven drummers he worked with from 5th to 12th grade. KuUmba performed throughout the northwest eventually spending a month in Ghana, Africa studying drum rhythms.
David co-wrote and performed the one man show “York” throughout the U.S. including a two-week run on 78th Street and Broadway in New York City. “York” is the story of the only black man on the Lewis & Clark Expedition.
AJ Savage
Board Member
AJ Savage carries an Associates Degree in Applied Health Science with a major in Massage Therapy and has been practicing for over a decade. In 2021 she and her family moved away from a fast growing city in Colorado to Wallowa County in Eastern Oregon. While living in Eastern Oregon, she and her partner started a hand-crafted goods business (The Girls Of Riverwoods HCG) and joined the board of Maxville Heritage Interpretive Center. AJ looks forward to utilizing her expertise; gained from both Massage Therapy and time spent homeschooling her children; in order to foster rich, local cultural historical connections, education, and healing arts.
Howard Teasley
Board Member
Mr. Teasley is proud and honored to be a board member of the Maxville Heritage Interpretive Center (MHIC). His life is blessed having roots in two continents and in Cheatham County, Tennessee and Nez Perce County, Idaho. He is a direct descendant from Nigeria and the Nez Perce Tribe. His given name is Ci’ Wa’tist Talqt in Nimiipuu Timpt (meaning “On the Verge, To Stop Injustice” in our Nez Perce language).
Mr. Teasley is currently the Director & Operations Lead for the Nez Perce Tribe Forestry & Fire Management Division. He has worked with the Tribe for twenty-nine years as a Biological Technician Administrative Forester, Allotment Forester, Forest Operations Project Lead, Assistant Forest Director & Director. His career spans years of Treaty interpretation, NEPA Compliance, Management of 60,000 acres of timberlands, Fire Protection, Suppression & Prevention, Fuels Reduction, Operational Project Planning, Evaluating & Prioritizing Activities on Tribal Trust, Fee, and Allotment lands within the reservation. He is currently working with the US Forest Service on Good Neighbor Authority (GNA) and Tribal Forest Protection Act (TFPA) projects with the ceded territory for the Tribe in Idaho, Oregon, Washington. Yóx kaló (Finished)
Ruby Barerra
Americorp, RARE Member
Ruby is our Americorps RARE member, serving with MHIC for a second program year. Ruby graduated from the University of Portland, where she earned her B.B.A. in Marketing and Sociology. She is a proud daughter of immigrants who settled in Eastern Oregon. Growing up in Eastern Oregon has greatly influenced her passion for rural development, community engagement, and diversity, equity, and inclusion work. In addition to being eager to learn all things MHIC, she is prepared to experience the diversity—and challenges—of a new rural community. Ruby is excited to serve Wallowa county!
Ruby has, and will continue to, add capacity to Maxville Heritage Interpretive Center’s mighty team. She will take a leading role in partner engagement, as well as develop and facilitate ongoing and new programming initiatives. Ruby will be working on several projects focused in areas like historical interpretation, volunteerism, and community engagement.
Ashley Durning
Education Programs Manager
Ashley is a local to Wallowa County; she is a third generation Wallowa High School graduate whose family has been a part of the Wallowa County logging industry since the 1960s with the Starner Lumber Mill and Logging Company in Lostine. She also spent a significant amount of time out Promise growing up; hiking, mushrooming, and huckleberry picking with her grandparents, parents, and four sisters.
After graduating high school and being heavily involved in the 4-H and FFA programs in the county, Ashley pursued a degree in education. In 2021, Ashley graduated from Oregon State University with a Bachelors of Science in Agricultural Science and a minor in Leadership. Ashley then went on to earn a Master's degree from OSU in Agricultural Education. With an immense passion for educating the public about agriculture and a strong desire to develop leadership skills in future generations, Ashley has joined the Maxville team to develop curriculum for MHIC that can be utilized both in and out of the classroom and will assist in managing projects at the Maxville Site alongside Gwen Trice.
Ashley is greatly looking forward to working with community members to create engaging content that is diverse and equitable and will encourage others to become the best version of themselves.
Averie Willard
Administrative Assistant
Averie has traversed the country since 2017 but originates from Northern Washington, where she developed a profound appreciation for the Pacific Northwest’s scenic beauty through backpacking and sustainable foraging. Her professional and academic journey has been centered around impartial research and engaging with children from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Averie led the establishment of a world arts program with the Boys & Girls Club and made substantial contributions to Dr. Sugiyama’s Talking Stories: Encyclopedia of Traditional Ecological Knowledge online anthology. While earning her degree in Anthropology, Averie’s husband sustained a traumatic brain injury during his enlistment. Assuming the role as his primary caregiver, she has advocated for mental health awareness within the Veterans Association.
Having concluded their military tenure, Averie and her husband found a new sense of belonging in the Wallowa County community, where they have chosen to settle and contribute to its ongoing development.
