Board of Directors
President/Board Chair - Dennis Biggerstaff, Administrative Consultant at 4J School District, retired school administrator. After receiving a BA and teacher certification from California State University at Sonoma, Dennis worked and traveled for two years. In 1973, he started his teaching career in Santa Rosa, California before taking a position as history teacher and coach the following fall in Hilo, Hawaii. Following his marriage to Rae Lynn Irwin in 1978 and a house restoration project, the couple moved to Eugene, Oregon in 1981 and Dennis attended Oregon State University, earning a M.S. degree in counseling. For the next ten years, Dennis worked in the Creswell School District as a high school counselor, assistant principal and principal at Creswell Middle School. After accepting a position as elementary/junior high school principal in the Pleasant Hill School District in 1992, Dennis moved to the high school in 1995 where he was principal and district curriculum coordinator until 2004. From 2004 to 2009, Dennis was the principal at Churchill High School in Eugene where he worked to implement small learning communities and and collaborative professional development model. During the 2010-11 school year, Dennis was the campus principal at North Eugene High School before his retirement in June, 2011. Dennis and Rae Lynn have two sons. Devon is a graduate student at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, and Tyson is a senior at the University of Oregon.
Director – Julie DePauw, Assistant Superintendent, South Lane School District. Julie served as the Principal of London School from 1990-1992 before leaving South Lane for Springfield School District, where she served as Principal of Moffitt Elementary School for 5 years before opening the new River Bend Elementary School. Julie also served as Principal of Howard Elementary in Eugene School District before returning to South Lane School District as the Director of Curriculum and Instruction in 2003. She was appointed Assistant Superintendent in 2007. Julie received her Bachelor’s Degree from UC Santa Barbara, her Master’ and Doctorate Degrees from the University of Oregon. Julie’s doctoral thesis was focused on mentoring.
Director – Devery Stoneberg, Principal, Trent Elementary School, Pleasant Hill, OR.
Director – K. Patrick Neill, Attorney-at-Law, Hershner Hunter Attorneys, Eugene, OR. Pat joined Hershner Hunter as a partner in 1975, after two years with Stoel Rives, LLP in Portland and two years with Quinney & Neill in Eugene. Throughout his career, his focus has been on commercial litigation. He became the firm’s managing partner in January, 2003. He has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America since 1989. Pat is a native Oregonian. He attended Hiram College in Hiram, Ohio where he was a psychology major and pursued his dream of playing professional baseball. Once he realized the dream was out of his reach, he decided to go to law school in order to return to Oregon. He attended the University of Southern California Law School, where he graduated first in his class. His two years in Portland confirmed for him that he was better suited for a smaller town, resulting in his move to Eugene. Pat has lived in Pleasant Hill since 1976. He and his wife, Sarah, raised their three sons there. Pat served for many years on the Pleasant Hill School Board and was an officer of the Oregon School Boards Association. He spent many years as a youth baseball and basketball coach.
Director – Mary Kyle McCurdy, Policy Director, 1000 Friends of Oregon, Portland, OR. Mary Kyle received her B.A. from Stanford University and her law degree from the University of California at Davis. She joined 1000 Friends of Oregon in 1990, where she has focused on urban growth management issues. Mary Kyle is a co-founding member of the Coalition for a Livable Future and has served on the CLF board since 1999 and on its steering committee for 5 years prior to that. Throughout this time she has provided leadership to CLF on land-use, affordable housing, and urban growth boundary issues. Mary Kyle and her husband have two daughters.
Director – Jim Keegan
