December 12, 2025
5:00PM EDT

Vote for the 2026 FLARE Board Members

It is election time for FLARE, and the link to the SurveyMonkey ballot is below. We are electing officers and three board members, and there are three by-law changes to consider. Instructions are on the ballot. The bylaws state that the vice president succeeds to the presidency, but our practice is to put the name on the ballot to affirm the choice and to remind members of who is in the line of succession. The following are the names on the ballot, with a write-in option at each position. Our bylaws give 4 weeks to return the ballot.  Voting closes on December 12. Thank you for participating in this important election for FLARE.

Vote here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/9KN2XWV  

Candidate for President--Diana B. Carlin

Diana is currently FLARE's Vice President and is a founding member and past treasurer.She is a professor emerita of communication at Saint Louis University and a retired professor of communication studies at the University of Kansas; she served as a university administrator at both universities. She is currently an adjunct instructor at American University teaching a course on first ladies and regularly teaches Osher Lifelong Learning classes on first ladies for the University of Kansas and Northwestern University. She is the co-author with Anita McBride and Nancy Kegan Smith of the first college textbook on first ladies--U.S. First Ladies: Making History and Leaving Legacies and Remember the First Ladies: America's History-Making Women. She has authored or co-authored book chapters on Martha Washington,Julia Grant (in press), Lady Bird Johnson, Barbara Bush, Hillary Clinton, and Michelle Obama. She is currently co-authoring a biography of Betty Ford with Myra Gutin. She has published two articles on first ladies for the White House History Quarterly and does presentations for a variety of professional associations and community groups. In addition to her scholarship on first ladies, she is also a presidential debates and political rhetoric scholar with an emphasis on women in politics. From 1987 to 2000 she served on the Advisory Board for the Commission on Presidential debates and created their voter education program, DebateWatch, through a Ford Foundation grant. She has worked extensively in new democracies on projects related to political debates, women political candidates, and civil society.

Candidate for Vice President--Christopher Leahy

Dr. Christopher J. Leahy is Professor of History at Keuka College, a liberal arts institution located in the Finger Lakes region of New York State. Leahy earned his undergraduate degree in History from Washington and Jefferson College, in Washington, PA; his MA in History from Virginia Tech; and his Ph.D. in History from Louisiana State University, where he worked under the direction of Professor William J. Cooper. He is the author of President without a Party: The Life of John Tyler (LSU Press, 2020), a biography the Wall Street Journal praised as a “deeply researched, gracefully written reappraisal” of the tenth president.  Leahy has also published scholarly articles and essays on first ladies, including two he co-authored with his wife, Sharon Williams Leahy: “The Ladies of Tippecanoe, and Tyler Too, in A Companion to First Ladies (Wiley Blackwell, 2016) and “Reclamation of a First Lady: Julia Gardiner Tyler’s Pursuit of a Federal Government Pension,” in Southern First Ladies: Culture and Place in White House History (University Press of Kansas, 2020). Currently, he and Sharon Leahy are at work on a biography of First Lady Julia Gardiner Tyler, which is under contract with the University Press of Kansas. An award-winning teacher, as well as a nationally recognized authority on the American presidency and first ladies, Leahy has appeared on C-SPAN and has been an invited participant in the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library Series on Presidential Biography.  He has also discussed his work on numerous podcasts. He currently serves on the FLARE Board of Directors as the interim secretary. 

Candidate for Secretary--Sharon Williams Leahy

Sharon Williams Leahy is a lifetime member of FLARE and serves on the programs committee with responsibility for directing virtual programming. She holds a B.L.A. in Landscape Architecture from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, and an M.A. from the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, GA. She is an independent scholar with an emphasis on first ladies and Julia Tyler. She and her husband, Chris, are completing a biography of First Lady Julia Gardiner Tyler, which is under contract with the University Press of Kansas. Sharon has published two-co-authored two essays with Christopher Leahy-- “The Ladies of Tippecanoe, and Tyler Too, in A Companion to First Ladies (Wiley Blackwell, 2016) and “Reclamation of a First Lady: Julia Gardiner Tyler’s Pursuit of a Federal Government Pension,” in Southern First Ladies: Culture and Place in White House History (University Press of Kansas, 2020). She has participated in numerous panels and programs on first ladies and has been interviewed on C-SPAN and by East Wing Magazine. She and Chris presented a virtual program for FLARE on Julia Tyler as a subject of political cartoons and participated in a podcast on the Controversies of Julia Tyler at the George W. Bush Institute. 

Candidate for Treasurer--Kathleen Spennrath

Kathleen Spennrath currently serves as FLARE Treasurer and is standing for a second two-year term. She has a long career working with fiduciary issues. Her work career has included finance, information technology, education, and publishing. Ms. Spennrath handled finances as a benefits analyst in an incentive stock plan valued in the billions, ensuring shareholder records and stock transactions were accurate. She has also worked in financial management and bookkeeping. Kathy has a life-long interest in history and particularly the study of first ladies after watching the C-SPAN series on first ladies moderated by Susan Swain. She has been a member of FLARE since 2022. She has served as a research assistant on first ladies projects including assisting with research, editing, and indexing of recent books on first ladies. Kathy holds a bachelor’s degree with honors from the University of Kansas and is a member of Golden Key International Honor Society and Phi Alpha Theta History Honor Society. Kathy enjoys serving as treasurer of FLARE. Her background provides the experience to serve FLARE in the capacity of treasurer. At the same time, she wants to continue to learn and promote the knowledge of the amazing lives of U. S. first ladies.

Member at Large--Jeanne Ryan Wolfson

Jeanne Ryan Wolfson is a current Member at Large on the FLARE Board of Directors and chairs its Marketing and Communications Committee. She is also an Inaugural Lifetime Individual Member. She is standing for a second three-year term. She most recently spoke at FLARE’s, “Accidental Leaders: Betty Ford and Nancy Reagan Speak Out on Breast Cancer” and makes her debut as a contributing author to a book on First Ladies’ use of autobiographies in press with the University Press of Kansas. Ms. Wolfson has a 40+ year career in strategic communications, specializing in public relations and integrated digital communications. She worked primarily in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, for corporations, businesses and foundations, providing strategic communication counsel and creative execution to CEOs, executive directors and other corporate leaders. Ms. Wolfson is currently the owner of Intent Communication, a strategic communication consultancy and has launched a new career as a children’s book author. Ms. Wolfson holds a master’s degree in strategic communication and a bachelor’s degree in journalism, both from American University. She also holds specialized professional certificates in children’s book writing from the University of California at San Diego and social media management from Georgetown University, among others, in various disciplines of public relations practice.She has served on many nonprofit boards in Montgomery County, Maryland, where she lives and is a member of the Public Relations Society of America and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. She is also an alumnus of Leadership Montgomery.

Member at Large--Susan Swain

Susan Swain retired as co-Chief Executive Officer, President and board member of C-SPAN, the nation’s eighth largest cable television network in January 2025, a position she had held since March 2012. In her years at C-SPAN.  She became a FLARE member in 2022 and has moderated FLARE virtual programs. She has moderated first  ladies panels for the White House Historical Association and has interviewed authors of first ladies books on C-SPAN's Book TV  She helped launch and grow C-SPAN’S BookTV and American History TV channels, as well as the network’s traveling “Local Content Vehicles.” She was involved in the creation of numerous C-SPAN featured history series, such as American Presidents, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, American Writers, The Contenders, and First Ladies. On the marketing/communications side, Swain oversaw press and social media efforts for the network, the traveling C-SPAN Bus, and led the publication of C-SPAN’s nine books, including First Ladies (2015) and The Presidents (2019). In 2019, Swain and Rob Kennedy were inducted into the Cable Hall of Fame; in 2017, the pair was inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame. A two-time winner of the cable industry’s Vanguard Award, Swain has also been recognized as a CableTV Pioneer. In addition to serving as a corporate director for C-SPAN, Swain served on numerous nonprofit boards, including as former chair and now emerita board member of the National Press Foundation. A longtime member of the National Press Club, Swain was also a founding board member of the Cable Television Public Affairs Association.

Member at Large--Anne Mattina

Anne Mattina is a lifetime member of FLARE and Professor Emerita of Communication at Stonehill College in North Easton, Massachusetts.  She holds a Bachelor of Arts in communication from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and Master of Arts and Ph.D. degrees in communication from The Ohio State University. Her major fields are in political communication, rhetoric, and interpersonal communication. She has published articles on Hillary Clinton including Soldiering On: Lisa Caputo, Marsha Berry, and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Media Relations in Media Relations and the Modern First Lady: From Jacqueline Kennedy to Melania Trump, Lisa M. Burns, editor, Rowman & Littlefield. 2020; “Hillary Rodham Clinton” in Leading Ladies of the White House, Molly Wertheimer, editor, Rowman & Littlefield; and “Hillary Rodham Clinton: Using Her Vital Voice” in Inventing Their Voices: The Rhetorical Development American First Ladies of the Twentieth Century, Molly Wertheimer, editor, Rowman & Littlefield. She has served on the editorial board of communication journals and has held positions in professional communication associations.