Photos special to Fargo INC!
Starting this month, in partnership with Emerging Prairie, Fargo INC! will be bringing you a preview of speakers who will be presenting at TEDxFargo in July. From an Academy Awards publicist to a museum director to the founder of a flower recycling project, this year’s event is sure to have something for everyone.
Melody Warnick
After 13 years of chronic moving, Melody Warnick managed to fall madly in love with her adopted hometown of Blacksburg, Va., and then wrote a book about how other people could do the same. “This Is Where You Belong: Finding Home Wherever You Are” helps movers and stayers alike rethink the value of their community and was described as “an important book for so many people who are choosing their place to live.”
A freelance journalist for more than a decade, Warnick has written for The Guardian, Atlantic CityLab, Quartz, Reader’s Digest, O: The Oprah Magazine, Redbook, and Better Homes and Gardens, among other publications.
Kelly Krenzel
As a marketing and communications specialist for Hospice of the Red River Valley, Krenzel focuses on telling the hospice mission through those who have experienced it firsthand. She says she’s truly moved by the small but beautiful moments she has witnessed among hospice patients and their families and staff.
Inspired by this work, the love for her Grandma Freda, a bit of a green thumb and an incredible amount of compassion for others, Krenzel started Hope Blooms—a flower recycling project—to spread joy, happiness and emotional healing to those facing difficult times.
Steve Rohr
Steve Rohr is a widely recognized communication expert, educator, bestselling author and the show publicist for the Academy Awards.
Adelynn Mrosko
Mrosko is an undergraduate at the University of North Dakota majoring in commercial aviation. In her time at UND, Mrosko has done extensive work promoting LGBT visibility and equality.
Andrew Maus
Maus is the director and CEO of the Plains Art Museum, an organization that first sparked his love for art museums and the role they play in building stronger, more innovative and healthier communities.
Located in Downtown Fargo, the Plains is the largest and only AAM (American Alliance of Museums)-accredited art museum in North Dakota and has several strong focus areas, including modern and contemporary exhibitions, regional artists, Native American programming, cultural diversity, creative placemaking, learning and artistic creation.
The Museum is an exemplary mid-sized, regional museum serving a vast and largely rural population. Maus is in his third stint at the Plains, where he has worked in a variety of capacities throughout the years. Prior to returning to Plains Art Museum, Maus served as executive director of the Minnesota Marine Art Museum (MMAM) in Winona, Minn., where he provided leadership in every major facet of the museum’s operation and oversaw a dramatic transformation and expansion of the organization.
Bridget McManamon
A 17-year-old junior at Moorhead Senior High School, McManamon started the charitable organization Herstory to increase access to menstrual-hygiene products, empower young women to have a better understanding of their physical well-being, and increase their confidence and ability to access leadership opportunities within their schools and communities.
McManamon is also heavily involved with her school’s speech team and theatre department and hopes to study political science and women’s studies in college.
Kevin Peterson
From the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation’s Upper Valley office in Hanover, N.H., Peterson co-leads design and implementation of the foundation’s Impact Investing Program. He also manages four grant programs: a statewide environment portfolio, which deals with grants, initiatives, and relationships with conservation-focused nonprofits; the Wellborn Ecology Fund, which supports place-based ecology education; the Upper Connecticut River Mitigation and Enhancement Fund, which supports watershed protection and restoration; and regional grants, nonprofit and donor relations in the Upper Valley. He joined the Foundation staff in 2001.
Prior to his time at the Foundation, Peterson spent 15 years with the Appalachian Trail Conservancy coordinating land protection, resource management and volunteer stewardship along 700 miles of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail in New England. Peterson has a geography degree from Dartmouth College and chairs the advisory committee for the Class of ’82 Upper Valley Social Entrepreneurship Fellowship at Dartmouth’s Center for Community Service. He also serves on the Dartmouth Outing Club Advisory Board.
TEDxFargo
Thursday, July 27, 2017
Fargo Civic Center
207 4th St. N, Fargo
For more information, visit TEDXFargo.com.