Erbsmehl and Foley named to College Council

Two Fredonia women, both with deep educational roots at SUNY Fredonia, were appointed to the SUNY Fredonia College Council by Gov. George Pataki during the final days of his administration. Shirley Miller Erbsmehl, '58, and Heather Morey Foley, '90, began serving with the council in February.

Ms. Erbsmehl, who earned her bachelor’s degree in elementary education at Fredonia in 1958 and master’s degree in education at SUNY Buffalo in 1970, was an elementary teacher at Lancaster Central School, Lancaster, N.Y., for 31 years. Following retirement, she supervised SUNY Fredonia student teachers for several years.
 

Active in the community, Mrs. Erbsmehl serves on the boards of the Fredonia Alumni Association, Fredonia Opera House and WCA Home, of which she is vice president. She also belongs to the Dunkirk-Fredonia branch of the American Association of University Women, and was its president from 1996 to 1998. She is a participating tutor with Literacy Volunteers and a former member of the Rockefeller Arts Center Steering Committee.

Ms. Erbsmehl established Gifts of Love, a program that distributes free clothing to parents of young children in Northern Chautauqua County. She is an active member of the Fredonia Shakespeare Club, Westfield Quilters Guild and Piano Technicians Guild Auxiliary, of which she is in her second term as national president.

Outside of the area, Mrs. Erbsmehl was part of a church work team that made two trips to Biloxi, Miss., in 2006 to help clean and rebuild homes.  Her husband, Charles, is a retired piano technician. They have one daughter, Barbara Faxlanger, a SUNY Fredonia graduate and teacher in Forestville, and two grandchildren, Andrew and Emily Keddie, both SUNY Fredonia students.

Ms. Foley earned a bachelor’s degree in elementary education/early childhood education at SUNY Fredonia in 1990 and, one year later, a master’s degree in reading, also from SUNY Fredonia. She joined the Cassadaga Valley School District in 1995, where she has served as a remedial reading teacher, first-grade teacher and kindergarten teacher. Mrs. Foley was a Head Start teacher for two years in Vermont, an educational specialist at a child care center in Columbus, Ohio, and a permanent substitute teacher in the Brocton Central School District.

A magna cum laude graduate at SUNY Fredonia, Ms. Foley is a former member of Kappa Delta Phi, an educational honor society, the National Dean’s List and past recipient of a Delta Kappa Gamma educational scholarship.

Ms. Foley is filling the unexpired term of the late Lou Mancuso on the Council.

She and her husband, David Foley, Chautauqua County District Attorney, are the parents of two children, Walter and Megan. Mr. Foley is a 1989 graduate of SUNY Fredonia. The Foleys are avid supporters of athletic and entertainment programs held at the college.

Ms. Foley’s late father, Russell Morey, owned and operated H.C. Ehlers Co. in Dunkirk. The company is still owned by the family, and Ms. Foley’s mother, Nancy Morey, a licensed R.N. at Brooks Memorial Hospital, Dunkirk, remains actively involved in the family business.

The College Council meets quarterly on campus. Other members of the council are Chairperson JoAnn Niebel, '78, of Dunkirk, Russell Diethrick of Jamestown, Robert Heichberger of Gowanda, Ann Manly of Fredonia, David Maternowski, '84, of Fredonia, Michael Sullivan of Fredonia, and Carla Westerlund, '68, of Greenhurst. Political science major Dahn Bull, a junior from Brockport, is the student representative.