Meet the 2025 RUX Steering Committee
The 2025 Rural-Urban Exchange Steering Committee brings together cross-ector, connective leaders dedicated to Kentucky’s civic health.
We’re excited to welcome two new Steering Committee members this year from the 2023-2024 leadership cohort: Bayley Amburgey & Ellie Hasken-Wagner!
Bayley Amburgey is an educator, community organizer, former teacher and current Senior Manager of Programs and Student Recruitment at the Louisville-based non-profit Educational Justice, which provides free peer-to-peer tutoring for underserved youth. She was born in Whitesburg, and raised all throughout the state, living in Lexington as a child, and eventually finishing her K-12 education in Eastern Kentucky, graduating from Harlan County High School. Bayley has a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Louisville where they graduated magna cum laude in 2020. At UofL, Bayley completed research on the politics surrounding the hopeful beginnings and eventual dramatic downturn of Kentucky coal miners unions. She has organized around climate justice, reproductive rights, racial justice and more. During the uprisings of 2020, Bayley cultivated an online audience of folks across Kentucky and continues her work through mutual aid, her online platform (@__bayonce), and career within education and schools. In her free time, Bayley enjoys reading, traveling, singing, listening to podcasts, spending time with friends, going to the movies, watching reality TV, and hanging with their cats!
Eleanor (Ellie) Hasken-Wagner, Ph.D., is the Museum and Historic Sites Supervisor for the city of Frankfort. She holds a Master’s Degree in Folk Studies from WKU and a Doctorate in Folklore & Ethnomusicology from Indiana University. Her graduate work produced two publications: a dissertation titled: The Migration of a Local Legend: The Case of Mothman and a thesis titled "Performing Gender in Bowling, or, 'I Was in Shock Other Girls Could Bowl." Throughout her graduate programs, she was well-known for her love of teaching, which has led her to continue to teach an Introduction to Folklore Course at University of Kentucky as a lecturer in the Modern and Classical Languages Department. As the Museum and Historic Sites Supervisor, her primary responsibility is to manage administrative duties, plan events, ensure the preservation of the historic Fort Hill at Leslie Morris Park, and curate exhibits at the Capital City Museum. She is a graduate of Leadership Frankfort, class of 2023, and a Kentucky Colonel. She is a frequent community lecturer and the writer and host of the award-winning, Kentucky Deceased: Hauntings of Frankfort podcast. In her spare time, she can be found tinkering on vintage mopeds and doing fiber-based arts.
We’re excited to welcome back two RUX alumni who have been dedicated to our movement since the early days: Jim Guthrie & Jenny Williams.
Jim Guthrie is the third owner of Hub + Weber since its founding in 1973. Hub + Weber is a small group of design professionals focused on the needs of our diverse clients and project types. Jim manages every project with particular focus on a collaborative and methodological approach that engages our clients in a step by step process to obtain their goals. Jim is personally interested in community, issues of those without homes and placemaking. He currently serves on the boards of PAR Projects located in Northside, Invest in Neighbhorhoods and Devou Good in Covington. His previous board involvement includes Center for Great Neighborhoods in Covington, Kentucky Rural Urban Exchange, Renaissance Covington, Main Street Newport and Covington’s Urban Design Review Board.
Jenny Williams is a Professor at Hazard County Community & Technical College, where she has taught writing and reading since 1992. She was a 2014-2017 RUX participant, and her strong commitment to community, education, and food systems has added much value and impact on the RUX network. The youngest of six siblings, all of whom still live in Hazard, Jenny is deeply rooted in her community. She serves on the board of Pathfinders of Perry County, Pine Mountain Settlement School, and Hindman Settlement School. She is passionate about equity, food, art, and education, and believes these things are irrevocably linked.
Returning 2024 Steering Committee members continue bridging divides in our Commonwealth.
Contea Allan was born in Louisville and raised in Elizabethtown. She attended the University of Louisville where she graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Elementary Education and a Master's in Teacher Leadership. She later obtained a second Master's degree from Eastern Kentucky University. She currently teaches ESL at an elementary school in the Jefferson County Public Schools district. She and her husband are co-owners of a pest control company, Tailor Made Pest Control, that serves Louisville and its surrounding areas. She enjoys reading, a good documentary, and figuring out ways to change the world.
Shaelyn Bishop is an Assistant Professor of Biology at Campbellsville University. She teaches various courses on biology, evolution, and the environment, and sponsors CU’s environmental activism group, Green Minds. Shaelyn’s special interests include Nature, humans & Nature, and creativity in many forms. She’s probably outside in the garden, in the woods, or in the creek.
Lauren Calhoun is a life-long resident of Owensboro, Kentucky, where she works as a Billing Supervisor for Owensboro Health Regional Hospital. She holds a Bachelor's degree in French from Murray State University and a Master of Business Administration from Northcentral University. Lauren loves singing and making music with her drummer husband John, her percussionist children Jack, Michael, and Katie, and an ever rotating roster of jamming buddies.
Bernard Clay received an MFA in creative writing from the University of Kentucky Creative Writing Program and is a member of the Affrilachian Poets collective. His work has been published in various journals and anthologies. He currently resides on a farm in eastern Kentucky with his herbalist wife Lauren (founder of Resilient Roots). English Lit is his first book.
Kyra Higgins is a storyteller based in Eastern Kentucky. She has her Bachelor’s in Theatre from Georgetown College. She loves flag dancing, reading, creative writing, assisting speech coaches, and learning about others’ passions. She is an unpublished Affrilachian poet and community scholar. Her work focuses on the performing arts to explore storytelling in the mountainous place she calls home.
Both professionally and personally, Tyler McDaniel uses his tools as a filmmaker, artist, and public historian to amplify already present voices and stories while highlighting how the past is constantly influencing the present. His passions extend to the built environment through not only the structures themselves, but the stories embedded within, alongside the ways that cultural and community identity are formed through place. Holding a BA in Media Production from Morehead State University and a Masters in Heritage Studies and Public History from the University of Minnesota, he has explored cultural oddities and socio-political systems through both rural and urban lenses. This multi-disciplinary approach has translated across multiple projects and organizations including the Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange, Squallis Puppeteers, A Public History of 35W research project and museum exhibit, the Minnesota Main Street Program, and Saint Paul’s African American Historic and Cultural Context Study – among others.
Olivia Spradlin is an avid gardener, canner, knitter, and dog mom. She is a medical anthropologist working at the Kentucky Coalition Against Domestic Violence to build safe and affirming systems of care for all survivors of violence.
After living in multiple states and all around the Commonwealth, Jess Stevens is proud to call Estill County her chosen home. As the founder and Owner of Alight Marketing Agency and the Deputy Director of the Estill Development Alliance, Jess works to support business owners and community members in a variety of ways. Jess loves connecting with people from all over the state and uplifting their fellow queer Appalachians and amplifying the voices of historically excluded folks both through RUX and her personal work. Her favorite element of RUX is the unstructured "download" time at night to talk through the sessions and really get to know their fellow RUXers.
Azucena (Susie) Trejo 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, and received her M.F.A. in Studio Art at Maryland Institute College of Art.
Robin Verson has spent the past two decades developing and managing her certified organic Metcalfe County farm while also devoting herself to raising 3 incredible humans. Growing food and nourishing the Hill and Hollow Farm's CSA community has offered Robin the opportunity to center her work on community support of sustainable farming practices. The farm is also home to a flock of heritage breed sheep rotationally grazing the pastures. In addition to raising vegetables, herbs and cut flowers, the farm also focuses on dye plants. The one of a kind local farm fiber products emerged from the farm's wool and these farm raised dye stuffs. She cofounded the Greater Cumberland Regional Fibershed with hopes of furthering awareness around healthy local fiber systems. Her knowledge of sustainable farming systems and her commitment to working with local farmers, shepherds, and consumers prepares Robin to more deeply explore the relationship between Kentuckians. Robin is thrilled to share her experience, her passion and her expertise.