Distributed Leadership Connects Our Commonwealth

Together, we are growing a more collaborative Kentucky.

RUX is a values-based organization that uses a distributed leadership approach to movement building, which means that everyone involved has the chance to contribute. This model is evolutionary and responsive: we learn by doing, and adjust along the way.

Holding our core values of Connection, Diversity, Openness, and Inclusion at the center of the work we do, our 2022 Steering Committee and Staff come from all across our Commonwealth. We come from urban and rural backgrounds; we’re from families who’ve been in Kentucky for generations and we’re people who’ve chosen Kentucky as home much more recently.

In our distributed leadership model RUX Steering Committee Members, Staff, Partners, Host Committee Members, Alumni, and Cohorts each have meaningful opportunities to contribute through program design, facilitation, committees, and evaluation.

Meet our RUX 2022 Steering Committee

Kelsey Cloonan (she/her, Knott County) currently works at the Hindman Settlement School as the Community Agriculture Support Coordinator, where she runs programs that support home-based food production and school garden education. She is the Manager of the Knott County Farmers Market, and also runs the recently started LGBTQIA2S+ Arts Collective at Hemphill Community Center in Letcher County.

Annie Jane Cotten (she/they, Letcher/Knott/Floyd County) serves as the Co-Director of Appalshop’s Community Development Program, the Regional Initiatives manager, and the Letcher County Culture Hub lead organizer. Annie Jane is also a certified holistic community herbalist, and is passionate about organizing efforts that utilize arts and culture to foster vibrant, sustainable community-led and community-owned economies; she enjoys taking mountain walks with her dog Kitty. 

Nick Covault (he/him, Jefferson County) is the Executive Director of Kentucky's Governor's School for the Arts (GSA) - the Commonwealth's flagship empowerment program for young artists and creatives and the nation’s largest tuition-free residential program of its kind. His professional journey has included participation in the SouthArts Dance Touring Initiative, the Emerging Leader Institute of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, and the Global Fellowship Program of the International Society for the Performing Arts.

Michael George (he/him, Jefferson County) is a passionate person, an aspiring chef, an empath and a psychic who strives to leave the world better than he found it. Michael works for Jefferson County Public Schools, is an avid learner mentor and Shaman, and he runs a community garden called 5th Element farms based on the 5th element of hip hop culture “Knowledge and understanding”.

Sarah M. Schmitt (she/her/they/them, Fayette County) is a folklorist specializing in oral history methodology who seeks to connect authentically with Kentucky communities and uplift the rich and vibrant culture of the Commonwealth’s people. She currently serves as the Arts Organization & Access Director for the Kentucky Arts Council, and as a founding RUX steering committee member, works to bridge perceived divides to unite Kentuckians through bold, clever, and empathetic practices.

Kareem Simpson (he/him, Kenton County) is the author of Chronicles of a Boy Misunderstood (2013), an eye-opening look into the life of Black gay men. Simpson works full-time at the Northern Kentucky Community Action Commission where he is the Director of Fatherhood; he is also the founder and chief imagination officer of SparkLight Creative Group, a small personal and professional development agency that works with individuals, small businesses, AND nonprofits on a higher level to create space for growth.

Jessica Stevens (she/her, Estill County) is the founder and Boss Lady of Alight Marketing Agency and the Operations Assistant of the Estill Development Alliance, where she works to support business owners and community members in a variety of ways. Jess loves connecting with people from all over the state, uplifting her fellow queer Appalachians, and amplifying the voices of historically excluded folks both through RUX and her personal work.

Emily Pike Stewart (she/her, Jefferson County) is a Grammy and Audie Award-winning creator of audiobooks born and raised in Louisville. In 2021, Emily founded Empyrean Productions, Inc. specializing in the storytelling arts including audiobooks (production, direction, narration, and coaching), theater, digital media, and education; she is currently converting a cargo van into a live-in mobile recording studio to travel the country recording audiobooks and featuring audiobook narrators’ studios and stories in a podcast and blog called The Nomad Narrator!

Taylor Killough Williams (she/her, Jefferson County) is a reporter, writer, and producer based in Louisville who holds degrees in journalism and anthropology; originally from Illinois, she is proud to call Kentucky her chosen home. In her spare time, she loves to travel, tend her garden, and dote on her two rescue pups; her favorite thing about RUX is seeing new places and deepening her understanding of Kentucky’s past to better shape its future. 

Azucena Trejo Williams (she/her/ella, Taylor County) is an interdisciplinary artist working in installation, photography, video and sound; her work continues to be exhibited nationally in both solo and group exhibitions. Trejo Williams graduated from the University of North Texas with a B.A. in Photojournalism, received her M.F.A. in Studio Art at Maryland Institute College of Art, and is an Assistant Professor of Art & Design at Campbellsville University in Campbellsville, KY.

Richard Young (he/him, Fayette County) is the Founder and Executive Director of CivicLex, a nationally-recognized civic education organization; he lives in Lexington and works at the intersection of democracy, public policy, social practice, and creativity. Richard is involved with several projects here in Kentucky; he is also a Marshall Memorial Fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States and a NextCity Vanguard.

Meet our 2022 RUX Staff

Ivy Brashear (she/her, Fayette County) Co-Facilitator

Ivy Brashear is a fifth-generation Perry Countian from Viper, Kentucky. She currently works as the Appalachian Transition Director at the Mountain Association, and will begin work on her PhD in Communication in August 2022. She is also a writer whose work has appeared in Yes! Magazine, Scalawag, Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity and 100 Days in Appalachia. She currently lives in Lexington, with her wife, Courtney, and their cat, Jaco Catorius.

Amelia Martens (she/her, McCracken County) Program Manager

Amelia Martens makes her home in Paducah and is the author of The Spoons in the Grass are There To Dig a Moat (Sarabande Books, 2016), and four poetry chapbooks. In 2019, she received an Al Smith Individual Artist Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council; she co-curates the Rivertown Reading Series and two awesome daughters. Making deep connections with people and learning new words/phrases are her favorite parts of RUX.

Meet our Exchange Director and RUX Co-Founder

Savannah Barrett (she/her, Jefferson County) Exchange Director

Savannah Barrett is the Exchange Director for Art of the Rural, the Project lead for field-building and program design for the Rural Generation initiative, and co-founder of the Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange. She holds a Masters of Arts Management from the University of Oregon, and is an alumnus of the Muhammad Ali Scholars for Peace and Justice at the University of Louisville and from the Kentucky Governor’s School for the Arts; she previously guided community programs for the Center for Community Arts and Cultural Policy, Louisville Visual Art, the Oregon Folklife Network, Paul Paletti Gallery, and Salvo Collective. A twelfth-generation Kentuckian, raised in Grayson Springs, Savannah stewards seven acres of her home place and lives in Louisville with her partner, Joe, and their daughter, Sylvia June.