Beth Carlson is a partner in Silo Media, a design firm specializing in graphics, website and video production. She is a founding board member of the W. E. B. Du Bois Center for Freedom and Democracy. She is currently the campaign manager for Farmsteads for Farmers, working with Berkshire Community Land Trust. She co-produced TapRoot Sessions, a traditional music series at Dewey Hall for several years and was a co-producer of the Oldtone Roots Music Festival. As a community activist, Beth was a key player in the effort to save the historic Searles School in Great Barrington. A natural and inspired organizer, she has produced a myriad of events, including Construct’s Warm up the Winter, many Dewey Hall events, as well as many community fundraisers.
Brian Healey is a senior corporate attorney at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP in New York City. He has considerable experience working with nonprofits, in both legal and volunteer capacities, in Washington, DC (American Trial Lawyers Association) and New York City (NYS Trial Lawyers Association, Friends in Deed, Visual AIDS). Brian resides in Ashley Falls with his partner Lee and their two beagles, Henry and Billy. He is the President of the Ashley Falls Village Improvement Society and is a dedicated gardener, jam maker and visual artist. His photographs and artwork have been exhibited in galleries and shows in New York City and Hudson, NY. Brian is honored to be a member of the Board and looks forward to strengthening his ties to the community though Dewey Hall.
Evelyn Battaglia is a journalist with over two decades of experience in lifestyle publishing, notably as an editor at Martha Stewart Omnimedia, where she contributed to various magazines and helped produce many bestselling books. Since leaving the company in 2015 to move to the Berkshires full-time, she has curated four additional books for Martha and published by Harper Collins—including The Martha Manual: How to do (Almost) Everything, Martha Stewart's Organizing, and Martha Stewart's Gardening Handbook (due out March 2025). Among other freelance roles, Evelyn is a Special Projects Editor for The Berkshire Edge's Business Monday section and Out & About Magazine. Previous experience includes practicing copyright law in NYC and serving as a congressional communications/fundraising coordinator in Washington, D.C. An avid home gardener and cook (and co-author of Home Sausage Making by Storey Publishing), she also relishes taking daily hikes with her energetic German Shorthaired Pointer.
Fred Frayer has a B.A. in Music from Colby College and a Masters in Arts Administration from Drexel University. He spent eight years working for major nonprofits in Philadelphia including the Walnut Street Theatre and the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. He recently retired from Verizon where he had been a computer programmer/analyst since 1990. Fred is an avid acoustic musician, playing mandolin, fiddle, banjo, and guitar. He played in local Philadelphia area bands over the past 35 years, and his latest group, Auld String Theory, released a CD on Amazon in 2016. In 2020, Fred moved to Great Barrington with his wife Heidi.
Maria Nation is a screenwriter with over 40 movies to her credit. A native of Malibu, she has lived on the East coast since 1984 and moved to her 1811 farmhouse in Ashley Falls in 1996. When not at her computer writing, she is outdoors gardening (her gardens have been published in many books and magazines), hanging with her dogs, horses, mini-donkeys, hiking with her partner John Halbreich, or in her kitchen baking sourdough breads and cooking for friends. She is an Advisory Board Member of the Berkshire International Film Festival and, in the past, she was a Trustee of the Berkshire Botanical Garden, on the Sheffield Planning Board, and a publicist/consultant to Berkshire Grown, Monterey Masonry, Irish Water Spaniel Club of America, etc. A committed homebody, she did ride a Berber stallion across the Sahara desert in Morocco three years ago and, with that bragging right, she never has to leave Sheffield again.
Wenonah Webster is the principal and creative director of her family’s business, Webster Landscape. Before joining Webster, Wenonah had her own landscape design business in Columbia county for 15 years. Prior to focusing on landscape design she spent 20 years working closely with first Pamela Read Hardcastle and then Ariella Chezar producing large weddings and events locally and abroad. She appeared on Martha Stewart in 2005 demonstrating how to build terrariums after Martha saw her terrariums in an installation in Hudson, NY. Wenonah returned to the area full time in 2011, making the Berkshires her permanent home to raise a family. Since moving back to Sheffield and taking over the family business she has been inspired, as a business owner, to be an active member of the community.
Beth Carlson is a partner in Silo Media, a design firm specializing in graphics, website and video production. She is a founding board member of the W. E. B. Du Bois Center for Freedom and Democracy. She is currently the campaign manager for Farmsteads for Farmers, working with Berkshire Community Land Trust. She co-produced TapRoot Sessions, a traditional music series at Dewey Hall for several years and was a co-producer of the Oldtone Roots Music Festival. As a community activist, Beth was a key player in the effort to save the historic Searles School in Great Barrington. A natural and inspired organizer, she has produced a myriad of events, including Construct’s Warm up the Winter, many Dewey Hall events, as well as many community fundraisers.
Brian Healey is a senior corporate attorney at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP in New York City. He has considerable experience working with nonprofits, in both legal and volunteer capacities, in Washington, DC (American Trial Lawyers Association) and New York City (NYS Trial Lawyers Association, Friends in Deed, Visual AIDS). Brian resides in Ashley Falls with his partner Lee and their two beagles, Henry and Billy. He is the President of the Ashley Falls Village Improvement Society and is a dedicated gardener, jam maker and visual artist. His photographs and artwork have been exhibited in galleries and shows in New York City and Hudson, NY. Brian is honored to be a member of the Board and looks forward to strengthening his ties to the community though Dewey Hall.
Evelyn Battaglia is a journalist with over two decades of experience in lifestyle publishing, notably as an editor at Martha Stewart Omnimedia, where she contributed to various magazines and helped produce many bestselling books. Since leaving the company in 2015 to move to the Berkshires full-time, she has curated four additional books for Martha and published by Harper Collins—including The Martha Manual: How to do (Almost) Everything, Martha Stewart's Organizing, and Martha Stewart's Gardening Handbook (due out March 2025). Among other freelance roles, Evelyn is a Special Projects Editor for The Berkshire Edge's Business Monday section and Out & About Magazine. Previous experience includes practicing copyright law in NYC and serving as a congressional communications/fundraising coordinator in Washington, D.C. An avid home gardener and cook (and co-author of Home Sausage Making by Storey Publishing), she also relishes taking daily hikes with her energetic German Shorthaired Pointer.
Fred Frayer has a B.A. in Music from Colby College and a Masters in Arts Administration from Drexel University. He spent eight years working for major nonprofits in Philadelphia including the Walnut Street Theatre and the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. He recently retired from Verizon where he had been a computer programmer/analyst since 1990. Fred is an avid acoustic musician, playing mandolin, fiddle, banjo, and guitar. He played in local Philadelphia area bands over the past 35 years, and his latest group, Auld String Theory, released a CD on Amazon in 2016. In 2020, Fred moved to Great Barrington with his wife Heidi.
Maria Nation is a screenwriter with over 40 movies to her credit. A native of Malibu, she has lived on the East coast since 1984 and moved to her 1811 farmhouse in Ashley Falls in 1996. When not at her computer writing, she is outdoors gardening (her gardens have been published in many books and magazines), hanging with her dogs, horses, mini-donkeys, hiking with her partner John Halbreich, or in her kitchen baking sourdough breads and cooking for friends. She is an Advisory Board Member of the Berkshire International Film Festival and, in the past, she was a Trustee of the Berkshire Botanical Garden, on the Sheffield Planning Board, and a publicist/consultant to Berkshire Grown, Monterey Masonry, Irish Water Spaniel Club of America, etc. A committed homebody, she did ride a Berber stallion across the Sahara desert in Morocco three years ago and, with that bragging right, she never has to leave Sheffield again.
Wenonah Webster is the principal and creative director of her family’s business, Webster Landscape. Before joining Webster, Wenonah had her own landscape design business in Columbia county for 15 years. Prior to focusing on landscape design she spent 20 years working closely with first Pamela Read Hardcastle and then Ariella Chezar producing large weddings and events locally and abroad. She appeared on Martha Stewart in 2005 demonstrating how to build terrariums after Martha saw her terrariums in an installation in Hudson, NY. Wenonah returned to the area full time in 2011, making the Berkshires her permanent home to raise a family. Since moving back to Sheffield and taking over the family business she has been inspired, as a business owner, to be an active member of the community.
