The Nominations Committee (chaired by Bonner Miller Cutting, with members Cheryl Eagan-Donovan and Joan Leon) is pleased to present the SOF membership with a slate of three candidates to stand for election to the Board of Trustees, and one candidate to stand for election as President, at the annual membership meeting. Nominations to the Board and to the office of President may also be initiated by written petition of at least ten members in good standing, so long as the petition is submitted to the Nominations Committee no later than sixty days before the annual meeting (tentatively September 24 for the annual general meeting, and 60 days before that would be approximately July 26). Petitions may be sent to jandbcutting@comcast.net or to P.O. Box 66083, Auburndale, MA 02466. The results of the Board election will be posted on the SOF website immediately after the annual meeting and reported in the Newsletter.
Nominees for three-year terms to the SOF Board:
Ben August became an active supporter of Oxfordian activities after reading Mark Anderson’s “Shakespeare” By Another Name. Thereafter he removed the traditional Shakespeare bust from his library shelf. Not able to find a de Vere bust, he resolved to have one made, and commissioned a bronze bust of Edward de Vere, sculpted by Paula Slater. An original has been placed at Castle Hedingham. An associate producer of Cheryl Eagan-Donovan’s documentary film, Nothing Is Truer Than Truth, Ben also produced an outstanding limited edition red wine at Mount Veeder Magic Vineyard in the Napa Valley, which he named “Earl 17.” Ben is currently the chair of the SOF Fundraising and Membership Committee.
Richard Foulke has been interested in the authorship question since 2000. In 2001, Rick and his wife, Lucinda, began attending meetings of the Chicago Oxford Society organized by Marion Buckley and Bill Farina. In 2017 he joined the SOF Finance Committee. He has been Treasurer since Oct 2019. He & his wife attended the Chicago, Oakland, & Hartford conferences. The Foulkes traveled to Italy in 2013, using Roe’s The Shakespeare Guide to Italy as a guidebook. They have also toured de Vere sites in England in 2006 and 2017; destinations included Hedingham Castle, Westminster Abbey, Tower of London, Globe Theater, the Town of Lavenham, Melford Hall, Hampton Court Palace, Windsor Castle, and Burghley House. During the 2017 trip, the Foulkes met Kevin Gilvary who gave them a walking tour of DeVere sites in London.
Earl Showerman, M.D., has been a patron of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for over forty years. He began his personal study of Shakespeare after retiring from medical practice and has published numerous peer-reviewed articles on Shakespeare’s use of Greek drama sources and the playwright’s remarkable medical knowledge. He was the executive producer of the CD of Edward de Vere’s music, My Lord of Oxenford’s Maske, recorded by the Renaissance group Mignarda. Over the past decade he has taught a series of Shakespeare authorship classes at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute of Southern Oregon University. He is a graduate of Harvard College and University of Michigan Medical School. In 2012, he presented the keynote address to the Shakespearean Authorship Trust (SAT) Conference in London. He is an associate of the SAT and a former president and trustee of the Shakespeare Fellowship.
Nominee for one-year term as President of the SOF: Earl Showerman
