Elaine Fisher
Ms. Fisher retired
from Ball State as Special Projects Director, Building Better Communities, in
June 2010. Prior to that, she served as the first Director of Ball State
University's Office of Building Better Communities (BBC). BBC conducts the Indiana
Economic Development Course (EDC), accredited by the International Economic
Development Council (IEDC) and also delivers customized, local and regional
education programs and consulting services. Elaine has designed and
administered strategic planning processes in over 30 Indiana communities.
She has served
on the Boards of Directors of the American Economic Development Council (AEDC),
the Mid-America Economic Development Council (MAEDC), and the Indiana Economic
Development Association (IEDA). In 2009 Ms. Fisher received the
Distinguished Hoosier Award and also received the inaugural Excellence in
Leadership Award from the Indiana Economic Development Association in 1999.
Ms. Fisher is a
frequent speaker at community and economic development workshops and
conferences and as a private consultant provides customized community economic
development services to Indiana communities and development related
organizations.
Nancy M. Knapke
Nancy Meiring Knapke is the director/manager of the Fort Recovery State Museum. She not only
oversees the seasonal operations of the
museum, reconstructed fort and
associated battlegrounds and other visitor attractions, she also organizes a
yearly speaker series and outreach program.
Nancy is a retired school administrator. Presently,in addition to her museum
responsibilities, she supervises student teachers for Wright State University,
and she evaluates teachers for Administrator Assistance of Brookston, IN. She holds a B.S. from the University of
Dayton and a M.A from Ball State University.
She is the mother of four, and grandmother of 11.
Jarrod Burks
Dr. Jarrod Burks is a professional archaeologist who works
for Ohio Valley Archaeology, Inc., a private archaeology firm in Columbus,
Ohio. Jarrod received his PhD and MA degrees in anthropology (archaeology) from
The Ohio State University and his BA degree in anthropology from the University
of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign. One of his great passions is relocating
ancient earthwork sites through geophysical survey. To that end he has surveyed several dozen of
these earthwork sites in Ohio, making numerous unique discoveries, including
finding previously unknown sites. Jarrod
is a trustee of the Ohio Archaeological Council, a nonprofit organization of
professional and avocational archaeologists, the President and a founder of the
Heartland Earthworks Conservancy (www.earthworksconservancy.org),
and the Treasurer of the Midwest Archaeological Conference. During his day job,
Jarrod spends a lot of time trying to find things of archaeological importance
for others to dig up. He is also often in cemeteries attempting to locate
unmarked graves and has participated in several forensics cases and taught
geophysics at forensics workshops. Looking for unmarked graves has taken him to
several interesting corners of the planet, including Guadalcanal, Poland, and
numerous states in the U.S. Jarrod’s most recent publications include: (with Robert Cook) 2011, “Beyond Squier and
Davis: Rediscovering Ohio’s Earthworks Using Geophysical Remote Sensing” in the
journal American Antiquity
76(4):667-689; 2010, “Recording Earthworks in Ohio-Historic Aerial Photography,
Old Maps and Magnetic Survey.” In Landscapes
through the Lens: Aerial Photographs and the Historic Environment, edited
by D. C. Cowley, R. A. Standring, and M. J. Abicht, pp. 77-87. Oxbow Books,
Oxford; and 2014 “Geophysical Survey at Ohio Earthworks: Updating Nineteenth
Century Maps and Filling the ‘Empty’ Spaces” in the journal Archaeological Prospection 21:5-13.