Our Leadership
Across Kentucky, in statewide and local campaigns, hundreds of KFTC leaders are deeply engaged and actively leading others. These leaders grow through skills training, mentoring, exchange with other groups and on-the-job practice.
Member leaders also govern our organization. Each chapter chooses a representative and alternate to the statewide Steering Committee. Members also serve on statewide issue committees such as Land Reform, Economic Justice, and New Energy & Transition, as well as governance committees like Personnel, Leadership Development and Finance. Many engage as New Power Leaders.
Statewide Officers
Cassia Herron
Chairperson
Cassia is a native of Richmond, Kentucky and has lived in Louisville for most of her adult life. She is a community development professional and advocate with more than 10 years experience working on projects at the intersections of community and economic development, food and the built environment and has a unique perspective on these issues as they relate to West Louisville. Cassia is a member of KFTC, Community Farm Alliance and works with New Roots as the farmer liaison with the Smoketown Fresh Stop market. As a budding entrepreneur, Cassia has a growing interest in renewable energy and sustainable development and has professional expertise in community engagement, grant-writing, policy development and strategic planning. She provided consistent and sustained leadership to the Empower Kentucky campaign, and she’s provided leadership in KFTC’s work for collective liberation and inclusivity in the Steering Committee and through her work with the Executive Committee. Cassia is a graduate of the University of Louisville and has a Masters of Urban Planning from the University of Michigan.
Fannie Madden-Grider
At-Large Representative on the Executive Committee
Fannie is a very involved member in Rowan County, serving as the Rowan County Steering Committee Representative. Fannie is a graduate of the first KFTC Organizing Academy cohort, and helped develop trainings for the next Academy cohort. She’s also active in the Rowan County chapter. She was a leading force in Rowan County’s voter outreach in 2018, and helped organize numerous events through KFTC and Indivisible in Morehead – from a town hall on taxes and pensions to a “potluck picnic for progressives.” Fannie’s political and electoral analyses are valued by the Steering Committee and by her chapter, as are her interest in developing leaders and building community.
Meta Mendel-Reyes
Immediate Past Chairperson
Meta is a professor of Peace and Social Justice Studies at Berea College. After graduating from college in her home state of California, she spent 15 years as a labor organizer, including four years with migrant farm workers. Meta is the author of Reclaiming Democracy: The Sixties in Politics and Memory (New York: Routledge, 1995). She has lived in Kentucky since 2000. “Limbo” is her first creative nonfiction essay. She was KFTC Chairperson for two years, 2017-2019 and has served in numerous other KFTC leadership positions.
Alan Smith
Vice-Chairperson
Alan Smith is an active member of the Southern Kentucky Chapter and has been dedicated to the chapter since he began to get involved right around the time the chapter was founded. Alan has served on the Economic Justice Committee and Voter Empowerment Strategy Team, and has served on the Steering Committee for three years and the Kentucky Coalition Board for one year. He’s continued to support statewide issues by participating in events like A Seat at the Table and Hear Our Health. Locally, he was active on voter empowerment strategy and voter registration efforts, fundraising and at-home lobby meetings – right up until his wife Jeannie ran a phenomenal campaign for state senate this past fall, when he had to pivot for a bit! Alan is now supporting KFTC’s collaboration with the Poor People’s Campaign. Alan has provided consistent, insightful and reliable leadership to KFTC for many years.
Rebecca Tucker
Secretary-Treasurer
Rebecca Tucker is truly a life-long member of KFTC. She served as the Madison County Steering Committee Representative until her election as secretary-treasurer after serving a year as the chapter’s alternate. She’s a valued leader, always asking quality questions and moving the work forward. Rebecca serves on KFTC’s Economic Justice Committee and Leadership Development Committee, and is a valued and active participant on both. She also is an active supporter of local work, helping to plan chapter fundraisers, guiding and participating in local Democracy Team and issue work, and supporting Madison County’s interns and student workers.
Chapter Representatives
Connor Allen
Jefferson County Representative
Emily Baldridge
Big Sandy Chapter Representative
Summer Bolton
Southern Kentucky Representative
Summer Bolton is an artist from Bowling Green. She works full time in web and graphic design, as well as doing freelance graphics work. Summer also is a painter influenced by the impressionist painters.
Courtney Combs
Perry County Representative
Tiffany Duncan
Central Kentucky Chapter Representative
Tiffany grew up in Lexington, where she is a member of the Central Kentucky chapter. Tiffany participated in the 2019 KFTC Organizing Academy. Relationship building is her favorite organizing strategy and she believes that transformation happens when people exist in supportive environments where they can challenge dominant cultural narratives. Tiffany holds a Bachelor of Arts in history from the University of Kentucky.
Greta Elenbaas
Northern Kentucky Chapter Representative
Greta lives in northern Kentucky’s Fort Wright, and has been a KFTC member since 2017. She is involved in racial justice and democracy teams locally, and is committed to helping develop educated and empowered Kentucky voters. Greta is excited about KFTC’s five-year plan to restore voting rights to people with a felony in their past and ensure all Kentuckians’ voices are heard.
Joy Fitzgerald
Shelby County Representative
Joy Fitzgerald is an environmental professional within public and private sectors. She is a life long social justice activist and has been a member of Shelby County's KFTC Chapter since 2015.
Alvin Madden-Grider
Rowan County Representative
Alvin, at 9 years old, accompanied his mom to the Jefferson County polls, leafleting voters in support of new school taxes to improve education for students with learning disabilities. As teachers, writers, journalists and parents, Alvin and his spouse/partner Fannie have advocated and organized for civil rights, education, prisoner rights, First Amendment freedoms, environmental protection and voter rights for 40 years. Alvin taught writing and journalism at Morehead State, Shawnee State and Ohio’s maximumsecurity prison in Lucasville. Alvin and Fannie are members of the Rowan County chapter. They organize for health care, pension reform, immigration and voter rights. Alvin’s family roots are in Appalachia, where he has lived since 1974. He has two grown children, a son and daughter, and a grandson living in Morehead.
Shannon Scott
Wilderness Trace Chapter Representative
Shannon lives in Danville and has been a KFTC member since 2016. She recently completed the KFTC Organizing Academy and is an active member of the New Energy and Transition (NET) and the Leadership Development committees. She is looking forward to a day when Kentucky embraces renewable energy and fully funds public education.
Alternates
Theresa Christmas
Southern Kentucky Chapter Alternate
Theresa is an artist and art educator, who received her Master of Arts in Education from Western Kentucky University and has been a past grant recipient from the Kentucky Foundation for Women for an Arts and Activist project. After teaching art in the public schools for more than a decade, she began Art Matters Community Studio and Gallery in Bowling Green, where for the past seven years she has been a resource to artists, providing them with exhibit opportunities and a teacher to budding artists, ages six to sixteen.
Mikaela Curry
Big Sandy Chapter Alternate
Mikaela Curry is a published poet, community organizer and environmental scientist living in eastern Kentucky. She earned advanced degrees in biological sciences and has worked as an environmental specialist, consultant, conservationist and researcher. She is currently prioritizing restoration of voting rights, climate justice, decolonization and the centering of indigenous perspectives and values into her work and is always interested in collaboration. She has been a member of the Big Sandy chapter since 2017.
Rachel Norton
Central Kentucky chapter alternate
Rachel's family moved to Kentucky when she was 6 years old. She grew up in the central part of the state and graduated from with a degree in biosystems engineering from the University of Kentucky. "When I left and traveled for awhile I realized that what I really wanted was to use my skills serve my neighbors, and to make my state, my home, a better place. And that became my mission." She currently works as a as a residential energy specialist.
Stephanie Kingsley, Cumberland chapter alternate
Courtney Kearney, Jefferson County alternate
Susan Haddix, Madison County alternate
Paul Schwartz, Northern Kentucky alternate
Bobby Duff, Perry County alternate
Kali Reagan, Rolling Bluegrass alternate
Tammy Barrett, Shelby County alternate
Shannon Roberts-Davis, Western Kentucky alternate
Eric Mount, Wilderness Trace chapter alternate