Guild Board Directors & Officers
- President – John Miller
- President-Elect – Shelley Mowry
- Treasurer – Newton Linebaugh
- Secretary –Robby (Roberta) Buchanan
- Nominating Committee Chair – Anita Hicks
- Past President – Jane Przeslica
- Parliamentarian – Jim Szabo
Guild Officers Bios
President: John Miller
John was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wis. He has been married to Eugenia for 52 yrs. and has 2 sons and 3 granddaughters.
John is an Army veteran, having served during the Vietnam War. He is a retired Senior V.P. and CIO of technology systems in the banking industry.
After retirement he joined the Guild and is a graduate of the Las Guias class of 2005. In 2006, John received the Josephine Schupp Freshman Award. He has given over 1,000 tours, co-chaired the Fall tune-up for 3 years and has been a mentor for several Las Guias classes. He chaired the Heard Guild Indian Fair & Market in 2010 and 2011 when the Heard Museum received the Az. Governor’s tourism award as the state’s Best Urban Event of 2010. That was the year he implemented musical performances in partnership with Canyon Records.
John has served on the Heard Guild Board for 11 years, coordinating Membership Services, Museum Services, Community Programs and Strategic Planning. During his tenure on the Guild Board, he was the Guild representative to the Heard Museum American Indian Advisory Comm. of the Board of Trustees. One of his singular accomplishments was creation of the Heard Guild Senior Lifetime Service Awards Program. He has served on the committee for all of its 9 years, becoming a recipient himself in 2018. He has been chair of the Nominating Committee and this past year, President-Elect of the Guild.
His contributions to the Guild are longstanding and substantial.
President-Elect: Shelley Mowry
Shelley was raised in Scottsdale, Az. and as early as third grade informed friends that some day she would be a volunteer at the Heard Museum. That someday began in 1981 when she volunteered in the Heard shop for 3 years, resigning when her son was born. Some time after that she began her career in banking—as a bank manager and then a Asst. Vice Pres. at Valley National Bank. During those years she served on a statewide committee for VNB, delegating charitable contributions to qualified social service agencies. In the early 1970s Shelley worked for Tuba City Public Schools and then worked for the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community after retiring from banking in 2006.
After she retired from SRPMIC in 2008 she resumed her affiliation with the Heard, joining the Heard Guild and becoming a Las Guias in 2010. That same year she was asked to chair Student Art which she did for 2 years before migrating to the Heard Museum Guild Fair Exhibitors Committee which she headed for 3 years. Following this, she became Chairperson of the HMGIFM for 2 years. Simultaneously, for 7 of these years, she served on the Guild board and she arranged memorable, exciting trips for Guild members, taking groups to significant Native American sites and events in Mexico, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Canada and continues to arrange small group trips. She currently is a facilitator for the Las Guias class and serves on the Guild board as programs chair and co-chairing the Cultural Performers for the 2022 fair.
Shelley and her husband David have been active in Native American communities in Arizona since the 1970s and are extremely knowledgeable about many local organizations and Tribal/Community leaders. She attended ASU where she earned her BA+ in Theatre and began her masters’ program in Multicultural Education: Black, Mexican/Hispanic, and American Indian cultures. Her volunteer career began as a candy-striper at the “old” Scottsdale Baptist Hospital in the early 60’s.
Shelley’s skill at connecting people and their talents is a great asset to the Guild.
Treasurer: Newton Linebaugh
Newton was born and raised in York, PA, lived in FL (Miami and the Tampa Bay area) for 32 years and Denver, CO for 3 years. He and his partner, Frank Vickory, have been together almost 20 years and they moved to Scottsdale in the summer of 2020 and love it here. Newton’s Alma Mater is Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, FL.
Newton retired from the New York Yankees as Director of Payroll in 2015 and has been filling his time with traveling and being a master gardener in FL, CO and now AZ. He recently joined the Guild and helped with staging and set up of the 2022 Heard Guild Indian Art Fair & Market. In addition to being Treasurer, he is planning to be part of the next Las Guias class beginning in the fall of 2022.
He is looking forward to contributing to the Guild in various ways.
Secretary: Robby (Roberta) Buchanan
Both Robby and Bob, who were married 48 years, grew up in Wichita, Kansas. During the early years of their marriage, they lived in Albuquerque, NM where Robby taught sixth grade and earned a MA in education from the University of New Mexico. Although they both fell in love with the Southwest, Bob’s career soon led them to the Washington DC area, where they lived for 30 years. After having served as “soccer/PTA mom” for many years, Robby eventually found time to indulge her passion for art history by becoming a docent at the National Gallery of Art. And, then by returning to graduate school, earning a MA in Art History from the University of Maryland. After graduation she worked for the Smithsonian Institution as the Coordinator of the Behind-the-Scenes Volunteers. In that capacity she was responsible for recruiting and placing volunteers in 9 museums and several support centers. The types of activities they performed were wide ranging and included such things as: restoring the Enola Gay for the Air and Space Museum; feeding tarantulas in the Natural History Museum Insect Zoo; raising orchids for the horticultural displays; working for the Office of Repatriation; answering inquiry letters in several museums and archives; conducting research for curatorial departments; and, translating academic papers from many other languages into English. Additionally, she was responsible for managing and training a small group of docents who gave tours of the Smithsonian Castle Building.
After Bob’s retirement in 2005, they returned “home” to the Southwest, specifically choosing the Phoenix area so that Robby could volunteer at the Heard Museum. Since joining the Guild in 2007, she has held many roles. Currently, she is entering her fifth year on the Juried Competition Committee, as the Coordinator of Judges. In that role she works closely with museum staff, including Director and CEO David Roche, Chief Curator Diana Pardue and Ann Marshall, Director of Research, to secure the most qualified artists and museum professionals as judges for the competition. Additionally, she has held many positions for the Fair. She headed Admissions for two years and then led Merchandise sales, followed by working on the Cultural Performance committee for several years. She has also served on the Nominating Committee, volunteered in the shop and on the information desk, and helped to run the Art Sale at the Library Book Sale. In 2008 she nearly completed Las Guias training, but unfortunately had to withdraw in April due to a health issue.
Nominating Committee Chairperson: Anita Hicks
Anita was born and raised in Chicago, moving to Phoenix in 1993 with her husband and 2 daughters. Once settled here, she resumed her career as a mental health professional, delivering clinical services in the outpatient psychiatry department of the Maricopa Health System (now Valleywise).
In 2005, after retiring from the psychiatry department as clinical director of a social skills program in the Encanto School District, she attended a monthly Guild meeting, joined the Guild and began volunteering in the Billie Jane Baguley Library, where she has remained ever since. In the library, she has worked with the Native American Artists Archives, organizing document boxes of primary source materials about well-known Native American artists, which are used by curators and researchers. Additionally, she has organized and archived historical document cases for IAIA, Santa Fe Indian Market, and (importantly) the Heard Museum Guild and Fairs. From 2008, until they ended in 2014, she was involved in the Library Book Sales, chairing the “art department” of the sales. Since these ended, she has organized small holiday sales of art and collectibles, including a small silent auction this past December. In 2018, she was the Library Volunteer of the Year. Other Guild activities include chairing 2 years of the “Prepare for the Fair” series, followed by 2 years of co-chairing the programs and speakers for monthly Guild meetings. She has volunteered at the Fair since joining the Guild, in recent years working on Juried Competition as well as the Monitoring Committee. Anita has been a member of the Nominating Committee for 1 year. This is her first year as chairperson.