Current Board of Directors

Our board is dedicated to the mission of The Partnership. Learn about the current and past directors below.

John Fassero, President
John Fassero, Jr., our current president, is one of three founding members who have served on the board for 22 years.  He is a lifelong resident who graduated from S.S. Simon and Jude Catholic School before graduating from Gillespie High School.  After earning a B.A. in Marketing from St. Louis University, he attended the U.S. Navy’s Officer Candidate School.  He served three times in Vietnam from 1969 through 1971, and then came home to join the family petroleum wholesale business, also serving as treasurer of the Illinois Petroleum Marketers Association until the family business was sold.  He is currently a sales representative with Aladdin Steel in Gillespie.  He is a Paul Harris Fellow in Rotary International, president of the local philanthropic Bertetti Foundation, and is a 30-year volunteer at St. Francis Hospital in Litchfield, where he is currently on the board of directors.  He also plays in the municipal band. His two adult sons and one adult daughter all graduated from CUSD7 schools.

John is the second President since The Partnership was founded.

Donna Prevedell, Vice-President 
Donna Prevedell was born in California and grew up in the Chicago suburbs. She attended DePauw University before graduating from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana with a B.A. in American Literature and an M.A. in the Teaching of English.  Teaching and journalism have been alternate career foci.  Teaching has included Parkland College; the USIA Language Center, Taiwan; and Prevedell & Associates business communications courses in corporations, including at the World Food Programme of the United Nations in Rome.  Journalism began as farm editor for the Champaign-Urbana Courier and continued as a floor reporter for an international finance and commodity news wire at the Chicago Board of Trade.  Next she freelanced as a contributing editor for magazines and newsletters; an editor/writer for corn, soybean, and pork national trade associations; and an editor/community relations liaison for Viacom and Exxon Mobil at a Superfund site.  Most recently she worked as an Emergency Medical Specialist at Memorial Hospital in Springfield and now designs and handcrafts purses, baby quilts, scarves, and photo greeting cards.  As a volunteer she has served as chair or co-chair of two statewide advisory committees under Gov. Jim Edgar and chaired the International Ag Advisory Committee of the University of Illinois.  Other volunteer outlets include: EMT with local ambulance; St. Francis Hospital hospice volunteer and member of three hospital committees; member of the Ag Advisory committee at Lewis and Clark Community College; reading volunteer for adult literacy and in CUSD7; senior high Sunday school teacher for 20 years at United Methodist Church; alumni president and board member of the Illinois Agricultural Leadership Foundation; founder and past leader of 4x4 4-H Club; and founding member and spokesperson for the Cahokia Watershed Preservation Committee.  She has been public, press, and community relations specialist with The Partnership for 22 years.  She has two adult daughters who graduated from CUSD7 schools.

Rose Tebbe, Treasurer 
Rose Marie Tebbe is The Partnership’s financial secretary, collecting and posting all donations mailed or presented to the foundation.  A graduate of Benld High School, Rose has lived in the area her entire life.  She continued her education with a two-year banking short course at Illinois Wesleyan University.  Rose worked 30 years for Peoples State Bank (now United Community Bank), finishing her career as assistant branch manager.  Her other community activities: volunteer at St. Francis Hospital gift shop; secretary-treasurer for Benld Cemetery Association; board member of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church Altar and Rosary Society.  She is involved with the Tebbe Family Foundation founded by her son Mark.  Rose has three adult sons and one daughter, all of them educated in CUSD7.

Rosie Emmenderfer, Secretary 

Anne Marie Bauer-Ross, Board Member

Nanci Grandone, Board Member
Nanci Grandone, our founder and first president, was raised in Decatur.  She earned a B.S. in Education (Speech/Theater with an English minor) and an M.S. in Education (Guidance Counseling) from Illinois State University.  In addition, she holds an M.S. in Educational Administration from Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville.  She has taught in Decatur and Lebanon; San Antonio; and for 21 years has been a guidance counselor at the Alton School District.  As part of her studies at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville she parlayed an assignment researching a school district-community partnership into the founding in 1992 of The Partnership for Educational Excellence which remains “a source of pride and joy.”  Nanci’s volunteer activities have included community theater in Decatur and Lebanon, Illinois; the founding of the Gillespie Lyric Theater; directorship of Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran School; Region 5 representative to the Illinois School Counselor Association; and sponsor of LifeSavers, a student peer group in the Alton schools.   She has three grown daughters who graduated from CUSD7 schools.

Nanci was the first and founding President of The Partnership.

Mary Griffel, Board Member

Katie Ronald, Board Member
Katie Ronald, a lifelong resident and graduate of CUSD7 schools, has a Doctorate of Pharmacy from St. Louis college of Pharmacy.  After a residency in Wisconsin, she joined Southern Illinois University Edwardsville School of Pharmacy (SIU SOP) and is currently Clinical Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice and adjunct faculty with Southern Illinois University School of Medicine (SIU SOM) in Springfield.  Her clinical practice site with SIU SOM is in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care at Memorial Medical Center in Springfield.  She serves on a number of committees at both SIU SOP and SIU SOM.  She also coaches her older son’s Minor Soccer Association, volunteers with a local charity called H.E.I.D.I., and is on the Strategic Planning Committee for CUSD7.  She has two young sons, one in CUSD7.

Carole Scheller, Board Member
Carole Scheller brings an educator’s perspective to The Partnership.  After attending CUSD7 schools, she also studied at Eastern Illinois University and Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, earning a B.A. in education (K-9).  After a brief stint working for the State of Illinois, Carole taught (mostly first grade) for 38 years in Gillespie, Arlington Heights, Mt. Olive, and again in Gillespie.  She volunteers as a Sunday school and youth group teacher at the Christian Church, as a teacher’s helper at Ben-Gil Elementary School, as secretary-treasurer for the Gillespie City Cemetery, and as a member of the Macoupin Military Support Group.  Carole is an active member of Delta Kappa Gamma Teachers’ Society.  She has two grown daughters who graduated from CUSD7.

Susan Stromsland, Board Member

Ken Tebbe, Board Member

Don Throne, Board Member
Don Throne, born and raised in Gillespie, earned a B.A. in Elementary Education and an M.A. in Counselor Education from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville.  During his 34 years of service in CUSD#7, Don taught 5th, 3rd, and 1st grades at Gillespie and Benld Elementary School.  In addition, he was an elementary counselor for the district.  Don has been active since joining The Partnership upon his recent retirement managing mini-grant recipients’ reports.  His goal is “to help make our school district the best it can be”.  He is also currently working for a 1-cent sales tax increase in Macoupin County to help area schools.

Julie Zirkelbach, Board Member

Past PARTNERSHIP DIRECTORS

The Partnership would not be what it is today without the help of our past board members, thank you!