Board of Directors

We encourage you to put forward names of individuals including your own name, who would be interested in serving on the Board and who also could make a contribution to the future of ALHFAM. Without a doubt, serving on this board is a stimulating and educational experience where Board members contribute to the growth and direction of an international organization.  

The Officers of the ALHFAM Board of Directors

ALHFAM Past President

Deb Arenz (Term Expires 2021)

Deb is the director of the Public Art Lincoln and the ALHFAM webmaster. During her 20+ year museum career, she has also served as the executive director of the Mountain-Plains Museums Association, associate director for collections at the Nebraska State Historical Society, curator at the Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer, director/curator at the Elkhorn Valley Museum, president of the Nebraska Museums Association, and as a board and nominating committee member for ALHFAM. A transplant from Connecticut, Deb now happily lives in the Great Plains with her husband and two kids and enjoys knitting, reading, biking, and eating items from other people’s gardens.

ALHFAM Treasurer

Debra Friedman (term expires 2022)

Deb worked at Old Sturbridge Village in positions ranging from seasonal interpreter to senior vice president. She held the position of food historian for many years, developing programs such as Dinner in a Country Village and Hearthside Bounty and edited the Old Sturbridge Village Cookbook. She most recently wrote the prospectus and final application for the Old Sturbridge Academy Charter School that opened this past September.

ALHFAM Secretary

Lauren McCormack (Term expires 2022)

Directors with Terms Expiring in 2021

Linda Evans

Linda been in the Living History profession since the mid 90’s. In Colorado she co-founded a nonprofit to raise money for a local museum and is presently the Curator of Living History at High Desert Museum in Bend, OR. For over 20 years, she had the privilege of working in all aspects of the museum world.

Angelina Jack

Lauren Muney

Lauren has a 30+ year history in design, presenting history-based interactive entertainments, production management of corporate special events, stage managing live shows, and coaching people in work- and life-related choices. Her business, “Silhouettes By Hand”, presents a historic rare trade, as well as providing silhouette portraiture at corporate events, museum events, private events, and mail order. A former chair of PIE PIG (Programming, Interpretation, and Education Professional Interest Group), Lauren now manages ALHFAM’s Instagram, ALHFAM’s Historic Farming Facebook page, as well as is a co-chair of ALHFAM’s new Skills Training and Preservation initiative. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland with her husband, a scientist, and loves traveling for work and play. She also loves her sickle with an unusual fondness.

Directors with Terms Expiring in 2022

Katie Cannon

Katie Cannon can't believe her luck in finding "her people." She was first hired as an interpreter by Conner Prairie in 1999 and hasn't looked back. Her quest to be the one at every gathering who has the weirdest job has brought her to Claude Moore Colonial Farm and George Washington's Mount Vernon, and she is currently the Curator of Education at the DAR Museum in Washington DC. Along the way she also earned a Master of Arts in Museum Studies from the University of Leicester. 

Katie’s particular interests include textiles (sheep shearing, spinning, dyeing, weaving) and some of the shadier aspects of 18th & 19th century life: cosmetics and fortune telling.  She has succeeded in making it part of her actual job to make goofy YouTube videos and invent games to play with visitors. Shh, don’t tell anyone.

Kay Cynova

Kay Cynova is the Director of Interpretive Resources at Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer in Grand Island, NE. She has worked at Stuhr Museum for 30 years as of 2019, in or with all departments. Kay led the interpretation department for over 20 years before interpretation was merged with the education department to become Interpretive Resources in 2014.

Kay has been a member of ALHFAM since 1992 and attended her first  Mountain Plains regional conference the following year. Kay served as the MPALHFAM Regional representative from 2005 to 2017, and has assisted with assorted regional conferences through these years. Kay chaired the MPALHFAM regional in 2017.

Kay’s spare time activities include period clothing construction, period crafting, a few pet research projects which she hopes to publish in the future, reading and genealogy. Kay is also a contributor to Findagrave and will help others trying to do family research in the Central Nebraska area.

Jonathan Kuester

Jonathan Kuester has spent most of his life on and around farms. Growing up on a small farm in central Indiana, he spent most of his time exploring his rural environment and looking for its history. Jonathan has worked in museum and living history field for more than 25 years and has spent most of that time studying agricultural history and rural life. He is currently Director of Historic Wagner Farm in Glenview Illinois. Before Wagner, Jonathan was Farm Operations Coordinator for Volkening Heritage Farm in Schaumburg, a position that he held for 12 years.

Directors with Terms Expiring in 2023

William Armstrong

Sonrisa Crespin

A New Jersey native, Sonrisa’s love of history began at an early age when her grandfather, a historian, would tell her stories of his childhood and take her to museums and historic sites. After earning a B.A. in American History from Alfred University, Sonrisa served as an intern at Howell Living History Farm, where she first considered a career in living history. While working on her M.A. at Western Carolina University, she worked closely with the university museum, the Tribal Historic Preservation Office of the Easten Band of the Cherokee Indian, and the Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual Inc. to explore other aspects of public history and preservation. 

Her love of living history led her to join ALHFAM as a student and attend her first Southeastern Regional Conference in 2013. There she met her future mentor, the Director of the Trades Department at Old Salem Museum and Gardens.  She spent the next two years learning to make 18^th and 19^th century shoes and leather goods, use a bake oven, and cook at a hearth – before returning to Howell Farm in 2015. There she served as a research intern, before assuming her current role as Education Program Coordinator. An active member of ALHFAM ever since, she served as a Mid Atlantic Regional Co-Representative from 2018–2020, and collaborated on the ALHFAM Skills Training and Preservation (STP) initiative.

When not at her desk or walking behind a plow, Sonrisa enjoys spending time with her equine and canine “children” Smokey and Rocky, reading, going to the beach, and cooking with family and friends – with home-grown veggies and the occasional 18^th century receipt on the menu. Whenever given the opportunity to travel, her first response is always “Tell me when to be at the airport!”

Peter Friesen

Peter Friesen received his Bachelor of Arts Degree from New Mexico State University, focusing on History with a minor in Anthropology.  He went on to receive his master’s degree in public history in 2006.

 During his senior year at NMSU Peter decided to focus on a career in living history.  He took an internship at Valley Forge National Historic Park, where he interpreted in 3^rd person, did black powder demonstrations, helped the archaeologists dig, and manned the visitor center desk.  After graduating, Peter decided to attend graduate school and focus on public history.  While there he took part in a class called Time Traveling where he learned about first person interpretation. His degree plan included a research paper of journal length and quality and several hours interning at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival assisting the supply coordinator.   His research paper titled Hemp, History and Museums, looked at how marijuana laws have affected public perception of hemp and how it is interpreted in living history museums.  This led Peter to Colonial Williamsburg where he worked for two years finishing his research and completing a master’s degree.  During this time, he started to look for a living history museum that also incorporated agriculture, which is how he came to be at HSMC.  After his first year at HSMC, he received the New Professional Travel Award for the National Council of Public History’s annual conference in Louisville, KY where he presented his research on Hemp and Museums.  Peter has continued his agricultural research to include tobacco, apples, livestock, and other aspects colonial farming life.

Peter also serves on the museum studies steering committee at St. Mary’s College of Maryland as well as teaching museums studies.