Who We Are

Executive Director

Jeanette Jeffrey, MS, MPH, MCHES

Karen Wright

Sally Campbell Powell

Board of Directors

Gale Drenning, Acting President

Maryanne Hossick , Acting Vice President

Native Marylander Maryanne and her husband John are transitioning to retire to Chestertown from another great historic Maryland river town of Ellicott City, MD. They discovered Chestertown in 2019 when they rented a “Cozy Cottage” on Langford Bay. They fell in love with all things Chestertown, the festivals, Main Street, farmers market, the kayaking on the river and the tributaries.  Deciding that Chestertown is where they wanted to retire, they found a lovely home in Coventry Farms. Maryanne is retired from her 20 years as an early childcare educator and business owner. Maryanne enjoys hiking, birding, kayaking and exploring all the small towns of the Eastern shore.

Susan Eddy, Secretary

 

Susan has lived in Chestertown for 25 years and served as a volunteer and board member with Voices for Quality Care, an organization advocating for nursing home residents and their families.  She retired from work as a field supervisor with Westat, a survey research company which gathered statistical data for government studies. Prior to that she worked as an editor-writer and newspaper reporter in Massachusetts.  She holds a M.A. in Communications from American University. Susan sings with the Chester River Chorale and a women’s barbershop group.

Stewart Seitz, Treasurer

 

Stew had a successful career as a healthcare executive over the course of 45 years. He had the good fortune of working in a variety of healthcare settings including consulting, serving as a partner in a healthcare start up company and worked in executive positions for several large healthcare systems in and around Washington DC and suburban Maryland.

Over the course of his career, Stew was very active in a variety of statewide healthcare issues and served on the board of several healthcare organizations as well as non profit associations.

Currently Stew serves as a consultant to a variety of companies in the healthcare arena assisting a organizations in enrolling and structuring employee healthcare benefit plans.

Stew is married to Celeste ( Mileto), has three (3) adult children and four (4) grandchildren and has resided in Chestertown since 2010.

Nancy Earnest

Nancy became a full-time resident of Chestertown, MD approximately eight years ago.  Prior to retiring in Chestertown, Nancy raised her family in Annapolis, MD.  Nancy retired from the State of MD as the Assistant to the Speaker of the House.  Nancy held other positions in the MD legislature such as Assistant to the Chairman of Economic Matters and Administrative Assistant to individual Delegates from Western, MD.  Nancy has been married to her husband Charles for nearly 50 years and has two children and three grandchildren. Nancy has a strong commitment to caring for family and friends, this includes keeping her two teenage grandsons in check. In her free time, Nancy enjoys reading, traveling, the beach and her family and friends.

Bill Flook, PhD

 

Bill retired from his position as Supervisor for the Office of Psychological Services, Baltimore County Public Schools, in 2015. Currently he is consulting and serving as mentor for new-hired school psychologists for the Kent County Public Schools.

Active with both educational and mental health advocacy for many years, Bill represented public education on the Mental Health Advisory Committees of both Anne Arundel and Baltimore Counties. Currently he serves on the steering committee for the Kent and Queen Anne’s chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).

Bill maintains an active engagement with politics and with the legislative process in the Maryland General Assembly, working with advocacy groups representing school psychologists, licensed psychologists, and NAMI. He serves as the President of the Democratic Club of Kent County.

Bill completed his graduate work in Psychology at the University of Rhode Island (Ph.D. 1982) with an emphasis on school psychology. He began his career as a teacher in the Providence (RI) public schools in 1969, and has been a school psychologist since 1974, with service in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Iowa before joining the Anne Arundel County Public Schools in 1984. He served as the Specialist for School Psychological Services at the Maryland State Department of Education from 1994 through 1998. Bill lives in Chestertown, Maryland; he is married, with three children and five grandchildren.

Gary Gunther

 

Donna Harrison

 

Originally a Jersey Girl, Donna discovered Chestertown while meandering the Delmarva Peninsula during the height of COVID-19. She fell in love with its small-town charm even though most of what made it truly special was still in lock-down.  “We trusted our gut!”… Having moved into their new home by fall of 2020 with her husband John.  When she is not kayaking Radcliffe Creek or playing bocce in Wilmer Park, she works as a graphic designer from her home office in Coventry Farms. She’s the proud mom of daughters Sam and Becca and a cat-mom to a clever mouser called Ringo.

Lee Hunley

Anne Kellstrom 

Anne has made Chestertown home since 2019 but it is the community she and husband Todd had been drawn to and visited many, many times.  Most of Anne’s professional career has been with the United States Golf Association in Liberty Corner, NJ but it was an opportunity at Washington College that brought them to Chestertown full-time.  After two years with the College in the Office of Academic Skills, Anne returned to her position as Manager, Legal Services (paralegal) for the USGA. Through her professional and personal life, Anne has had meaningful opportunities to both manage volunteers and to be a volunteer.  She also enjoys spending as much time as possible outdoors walking her English Spaniel Zoey, golfing and daughter Melanie.

Serenity Kelly

Community Health Advocate for UMMS, Shore Regional Health in Chestertown, Serenity holds a B.S. degree in Emergency Services Management and is a Certified Community Health Worker.  Serenity is a retired Paramedic and worked for Kent County as a Paramedic for 18 years, five of those years she was the Chief of EMS.  During her 18 years as a Paramedic in Kent, she spent five years also working at BWI Fire and Rescue Dept. as a Paramedic/Firefighter.  Serenity and her husband David have two children and live in Chestertown.  In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her horses, traveling and painting furniture.

CB Lovell

CB has been a resident of Kent County since 2005 and lives in Kennedyville with her husband, Burr. Before retiring she was a Professor at Howard Community College in Columbia, MD and taught English.  In addition to her love of books, CB loves mothering, grandmothering, and being a good neighbor, good friend, and good citizen of our ever-shrinking world. Serving on the HomePorts Board is an opportunity to continue a life dedicated to service of others.

Erica Osterhout

YMCA Executive Director Erica credits her success to her multifaceted experience in the health and wellness field with over two decades of expertise ranging from the sciences of exercise via her degree, to group instruction, customer service, leadership, and beyond into community development. Noting that human connection is the link that bonds these advancements together, her appetite for making a meaningful impact on the lives of many has only grown. She believes that health has to be a relationship with yourself in mind, body and spirit, and that it has to be attainable for all of us.

Libby Yost, PhD

Libby is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of Pre- Health programs at Washington College. Dr. Yost’s research specializes in technology and health as well as quality of life issues in older adult populations. Her research evaluates how different technologies can be utilized in older adult populations to maintain physical, mental, and emotional health. In her spare time, she enjoys cooking and traveling with her partner and dog.

Muriel Cole, Ex Officio

Formerly Past-President of HomePorts, she has been a lifelong advocate for seniors. She has a graduate certificate in Gerontology from the University of Maryland and co-chairs the Kent County Commission on Aging. She has lived in Chestertown for 26 years.