Melanie Bell Gibbs
IAFI Director, ExCom Member My family moved from beautiful Northeast Texas to the Spokane area to teach and work at Eastern Washington University. We raised four children on a sheep ranch east of Cheney where a rock ledge captivated EWU students as geology faculty lectured about how those rocks were a part of the Ice Age Floods story. We joined IAFI and the Cheney-Spokane Chapter and began an interesting journey learning about the Floods. Since January 2007, I served both IAFI and the Cheney-Spokane Chapter as secretary, treasurer, and executive committee while focusing on recruiting sponsors and partners, membership management, grant writing, and revenue streaming. I am now past-president of the Cheney-Spokane Chapter.
Patty Hurd
IAFI Store Manager My husband Terry and I moved to the Columbia River Gorge in 1993 and were struck by its beauty. We signed up for a field trip with the Lower Columbia chapter one weekend in 1995, drove almost two hours to board the bus in Tualatin, then drove three hours back up the gorge (practically past our front door) to learn more about our own geology and the impact of the Ice Age floods, then back to Tualatin and the drive home. Ter thought that there should be a closer IAFI chapter and waited patiently for someone to start one, but since no one stepped forward, he did it himself. I tagged along with him to board meetings until one time in about 2013 when I had something else planned, but when he got home, he informed me that he had “volunteered” me for store manager. After he died in 2015, the love and support from the board and members helped me decide to stay in that position, and here I still am, and loving it most of the time(except when it is time to do reports). I enjoy staying at home, so the current situation hasn’t been a strain. Our three daughters live close enough for occasional visits and lots of phone calls. I was a member of Sweet Adelines for 20+ years and sang tenor in several quartets, have studied classical music as a coloratura soprano until this past year, am a member of the Oregon/southwest Washington chapter of MENSA, and retired in 2013 from teaching and doing social service work with Head Start.
Monte Nail
IAFI Treasurer I was born and raised on a farm in Hansen Idaho, graduated from the University of Idaho and after a ten year stint with a private company, went into public accounting. I was asked to join Ice Age Floods while on a bus field trip in 2004. I became the Treasurer following Jim Prichard and have been helping maintain their finances ever since.