Our Board

2023 – 2024 Board Members

League of Women Voters Asheville – Buncombe County
North Carolina

Board members follow Board Member Expectations and are elected in accordance with our Bylaws.

Suzanne Fisher, President

Suzanne Fisher’s heart came to the Asheville area in 2010 when she and her husband Marshall purchased a lot outside of Black Mountain; the rest of her arrived in 2013 when their home was completed. Since then she has been a member of the Board of Directors of their community, a regular volunteer at the Thomas Wolfe Memorial and with the Asheville Buncombe County Preservation Society, and recently joined the Guastavino Alliance Board. Her entire career was at the National Institutes of Health outside of Washington, D.C. where she had a variety of research and managerial positions. Her interest in women’s issues started in graduate school. She proudly marched for ERA in 1978, and was a longtime member of the Association of Women in Science. Suzanne recently joined the League and her interest in historic preservation led her to join the 100th Anniversary Committee. She is also the coordinator for the League’s Twitter and Facebook presence. She and her husband enjoy traveling both abroad and in the U.S., especially to be with their son, daughter-in-law and three amazing grandchildren.

Nicole Wheeler-Schumacher, Vice-President

Nicole Wheeler-Schumacher joined the Asheville-Buncombe County League in spring 2018 after relocating to Weaverville from Tampa, FL. Nicole grew up in the metro Detroit area, and graduated from the School of Social Work (MSW) at GVSU in 2002. She is a licensed clinical social worker and has been providing advocacy, support and intervention to survivors of trauma for nearly twenty years. Nicole’s parents instilled the importance of serving one’s community in their children. She recalls hearing stories about her paternal grandfather transporting voters in the Reems Creek Valley to their polling station(s) and accompanying her mother to their MI polling station to pass out rulers on election days. Nicole has organized and participated in marches for women’s, survivors’ rights in DC and in her community throughout her career.  She respects the League’s commitment to community education, advocacy and nonpartisan membership. Nicole’s special interests include access to mental health care/ healthcare coverage for all, crime victims’ rights, voters’ rights, and climate change.  Nicole is working for Mission Health and Helpmate. In her downtime, she and her husband have been reconnecting with nature one hike at a time.

Patricia Hearron, Secretary

Patricia Hearron moved to Asheville in 2015. Prior to that she pursued a career in early education as a preschool teacher, center director, licensing consultant, and finally university professor. Along the way, she and her husband enjoyed several opportunities to travel and live abroad in Paris, Rwanda, and Shanghai. Since retiring, she has walked across Spain on the Camino Santiago, begun tutoring English language learners at the Literacy Council of Buncombe County, and joined the League. As a member, she has participated in several projects: observing Board of Elections meetings, calling candidates to encourage participation in VOTE411 and helping with the Gerrymander 5K. She looks forward to learning from the more experienced board members and deepening her involvement in the League’s century-long work to insure that the rights of our democracy apply to all.

Lynn Lederer, Treasurer

Treasurer Lynn Lederer and her husband retired to Asheville from Nepal in 2013 having spent the previous 17 years involved in various development projects based mainly in Africa (Namibia, Mali and Zambia). Her involvement with the League began with a friend encouraging her involvement in the summer of 2014, and a year later she became Treasurer and Roster Manager. Her duties include keeping the accounts, paying the bills, and receiving and depositing money, as well as ensuring our membership list is always up-to-date! In addition to the League, Lynn regularly volunteers at MANNA, wherein she assists people in western NC sign up for food stamps or access food resources in their communities, and at Care Partners Foundation Estate Sales, which supports the hospice program from which both of her parents greatly benefited. In May 2022 she was honored with a Governor Volunteer Service Award for helping to make Buncombe County a better place.

Kelly Carlson, Board Director

Kelly moved to Asheville NC in 2019 after living in Texas for 30 years. Kelly has contributed to the League in past years and joined the Asheville-Buncombe League in 2022 as a way of supporting and promoting free and fair elections. While in Texas, Kelly was active in local elections working in the polls in several capacities including election judge and assistant judge. She also was active in environmental protection efforts including serving on the Board for the local Sierra Club in Dallas and on the City of Plano’s Keep Plano Beautiful Board. When Kelly lived in Austin, she volunteered with Treefolks and the Green Corn Project organizations which build gardens and plant trees in local communities. Since moving to Asheville, Kelly has volunteered with MANNA to provide food to families in need as well as becoming a Treekeeper with the Asheville Greenworks organization. Kelly has an MBA and a degree in math/computer science and has worked in the tech industry her entire career. She looks forward to supporting the League in promoting democracy and advocating for women’s rights.

Nadine Hamby, Board Director

Nadine Hamby moved from Seattle to Asheville in 2006. Her interest in working with nonprofits began right out of college with her very first job as a VISTA volunteer in Los Angeles. Her first job here in Asheville was with a nonprofit in the healthcare field where she met League member, Vicki Willard. Vicki asked her if she’d be interested in working on the chapter website. She was so interested she joined the League. She has enjoyed being a member and contributing her skills. It’s exciting to be a part of an active chapter.

Linda Kinsinger, Board Director

Linda and her husband moved to Weaverville in 2018 from Chapel Hill, where they’d lived for about 30 years. She is a retired general internal medicine and preventive medicine physician, having served on the faculty of the UNC Schools of Medicine and Public Health for several years. More recently, she spent ten years as the Chief of Preventive Medicine for the Veterans Health Administration in the Department of Veterans Affairs. She and her husband love hiking and camping in the mountains, especially in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. She also enjoys weaving, quilting, biking, and volunteering at MANNA regularly. She joined the League of Women Voters after becoming strongly supportive of the idea of a National Popular Vote, as well as other League initiatives.

Donna Mann, Board Director

Originally from Pittsburgh, my husband Tom and I moved to Weaverville five years ago from East Texas. He and I were both employed at the University of Texas teaching hospital in Tyler. I got involved with LWVAB registering voters during the 2020 election, and I’m excited to continue with this very dynamic group as we head into the fall elections and beyond!

Ruth Planey, Board Director

Ruth and her husband moved to Weaverville in 2003 from Southern California. They both got jobs working from one of Asheville’s many non-profits. Before finding her dream job as an administrative assistant in Asheville, Ruth taught high school, was a flight attendant and wrote for newspapers and magazines in Southern California. As soon as they arrived, both started volunteering to build sets at Asheville Community Theatre and made steadfast friends. Besides volunteering at the theater, making blankets for Project Linus, serving on the board of the Garden Club, and you can catch her singing the National Anthem at a Tourist Baseball game. Ruth joined the League in 2021 because she wanted to use her brain. Despite all the volunteer work that fills up her calendar, she wanted to do something that would make an impact on the lives of more people. She’s found a home working on the National Popular Vote.

Cheryl Williams, Board Director

Cheryl is a second generation LWV member who was often recruited by her now 98-year-old mother for League events in the 1970s in West Virginia. After living in Portland OR and Atlanta GA, she and her spouse moved to the Asheville area in 2011. She joined the Madison County member at large LWV group in 2017 and transferred to LWV-Asheville Buncombe when the Madison group disbanded last summer. Before retirement, she was an analyst with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) where she reviewed programs ranging from wildlife management on federal land to emerging infections and pandemic public health planning, among other things. She’s very excited to be working the polls this year in Madison County and expanding her observation efforts to include Buncombe County.

Sharon Withrow, Board Director

Sharon has been a resident of Asheville since 1996 and a League member since 2016. She has volunteered with the Gerrymander 5K in 2017, voter registration at area colleges, and census education in 2020. She is a staff member at UNC Asheville and a volunteer with the Asheville Middle School PTO and the Girl Scouts Peaks to Piedmont Council. Her interest in the League began with her research into the woman suffrage movement in western North Carolina. She is inspired by the League’s commitment to fostering active and informed participation in democracy.