Board of Directors
Some of our board members have had to leave us to respond to the demands life places on all of us, be it family issues, job related, or other matters that require undivided attention. Pat Conroy Literary Center is grateful to these dedicated people for their service, some of whom were with us since the very beginning.
Our thanks go out to Tim Conroy, Mayor Billy Keyserling, Esther Harnett Shaver, Victoria Smalls…
We also welcome our new ‘rotating’ addition to the Board of Directors Melissa Conroy who replaces our friend and former member Susannah Conroy.
At our March 11th 2022 meeting, the board bestowed its high praise onto Marilyn Harcharik from her role as treasurer which she so brilliantly fulfilled during our new building fund campaign. She did this while also managing to supervise the remodeling of the new Pat Conroy Center building located at 601 Bladen Street.
Jane T. Upshaw, PHD, is the Distinguished Chancellor Emerita of the University of South Carolina Beaufort. She spent almost thirty years at the University as an instructor, a professor, Director of Development, Dean of the Beaufort Campus. In 2002 she became its founding chancellor, leading the transformation of the campus into a separately accredited comprehensive baccalaureate university, not only a full-service institution but the fastest growing comprehensive university in South Carolina. Her work in the University’s growth and development and her commitment to community outreach have brought her local, regional and national recognition. Although she retired from USCB in 2015, she continues to be active professionally speaking, consulting, and volunteering. She and Pat were friends for many years both having shared a life passion and commitment to education.
Cassandra King is the award-winning author of five novels, a book of nonfiction, numerous short stories, essays, and magazine articles, most recently appearing in Coastal Living and Southern Living. Her New York Times and USA Today bestselling second novel, The Sunday Wife, was a People magazine Page-Turner, a South Carolina’s Readers Circle choice, and named as one of Book Sense’s top reading group selections. Also a New York Times and USA Today bestseller, The Same Sweet Girls was a number one Book Sense selection on release. Both novels were nominated for SIBA’s Book of the Year. Moonrise was a SIBA Okra Pick and bestseller, as was The Same Sweet Girls Guide to Life: Advice from a Failed Southern Belle. Recently honored as a 2017 Alabama Humanities Foundation Fellow, her most recent book is a memoir Tell Me A Story about life with her late husband, Pat Conroy.
Marly Rusoff, founder of The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, is a former publishing executive at Houghton Mifflin, Doubleday, and William Morrow, and current president of Marly Rusoff Literary Agency. She has worked with hundreds of authors in various capacities over the years. Marly has served on boards of several nonprofit organizations including The Loft, Teachers & Writers, The Anne Frank Center, and The International Peace Academy. She first met Pat in her bookstore when she was a young bookseller in Minneapolis where he had brought his daughters to visit his sister Carol. During that time, he vacationed on the North Shore of Lake Superior and was introduced to a vibrant community of poets and journal writers. Before becoming Pat Conroy’s literary agent, she orchestrated the publicity launches of a number of his books including The Prince of Tides and Beach Music. She and Pat were friends for more than thirty-five years.
Pat Conroy’s younger sister, has been a Registered Nurse in Beaufort for 27 years in a prevention program with United States Marine Corps Tri-Command, working on all bases and at the Naval Hospital in Beaufort. She retired in May 2019.
Kathy is pure lowcountry. A graduate of Beaufort High, she earned her nursing degree at the Technical College of Lowcountry. In 1978 she married a local boy, Bobby Joe Harvey. Their son Will, a gifted jazz musician, studied in NY and graduated from Queens College. He later married Laura Seiberling, a behavioral psychologist. They have a daughter Coda. They frequently travel to Beaufort to visit family from their home in downtown Charleston where Will teaches at Allegra Music School.
Kathy is the glue that holds many of us together at the Pat Conroy Center. She enjoys gardening, quilting, (one is on display at the Center) and volunteering when she is not spending time with her family
This is a one year rotating position for the daughters of Pat Conroy: Jessica, Melissa, Megan and Susannah Conroy.
Melissa Conroy is Pat Conroy’s second oldest daughter. Melissa was born in Beaufort, SC and grew up in Atlanta, GA. She is an artist, author/illustrator and textile designer. Melissa has published three books including two children’s picture books, “Poppy’s Pants” and “Grandma is an Author”, and an Adult Coloring Book entitled “The Lowcountry Coloring Book”.
Melissa’s artwork is in the permanent collection of the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, PA and Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital in Memphis, TN. She currently lives in Ithaca, NY with her husband, teenage son, three cats and an Australian Shepherd. Her daughter is off at college. Melissa is a Sr. Lecturer in the Department of Human Centered Design at Cornell University, specializing in textile design. Since arriving at Cornell, Melissa has continued to exhibit her work at Cornell, Elmira College, and Corners Gallery in Ithaca. She has received grants from the Cornell Council for the Arts and a Materials Based Research Grant from The Center for Craft in Asheville, NC with Professor Cindy Kao resulting in two peer reviewed academic papers that explore knit structures as housing for soft robotics.
Roland Gardner’s life has been dedicated to improving the health and wellbeing of Lowcountry residents. He became the Chief Executive Officer of the Beaufort-Jasper-Hampton Comprehensive Health Services (BJHCHS) in 1980, a multi-specialty medical center that provides comprehensive health care to more than 17,000 patients in three counties, which he was instrumental in building from a small organization into a much larger multi-specialty health care system. Gardner received the Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award for Health Care in 1996 and the Pioneer Appreciation Person of the Year Award from the Southeastern Rural Assistance Project. In 2004, he was inducted into the National Grassroots Policy Hall of Fame by the National Association of Community Health Centers, and in 2012, Kathleen Sebelius, the head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, appointed him to the National Advisory Council for Rural Health and Human Services. A native of St. Helena Island, he now lives with his wife Connie on an adjoining island. They have two adult daughters. Friends since high school, Pat always enjoyed listening to Roland’s stories about local history, the Penn Center, and the island cultures around Beaufort.
Deborah Smith recently retired from twenty year stint as Executive Director of the Newberry, SC Opera House. During her tenure she not only revived the music center but the town itself.
When Deborah came to Newberry, the Opera House was nothing but a dilapidated building with the threat of being torn down. She helped raise the $5.5 million needed for that structure then over the years converted the local fire station into a busy conference center. She managed and directed a 426 seat theater that hosted approximately 250 shows a year, bringing both fame and the famous to Newberry. From a financial view, the numbers are staggering. Harry Miley, the former head of the Budget and Control Board for South Carolina, has estimated that the Newberry Opera House has had an economic impact of over $500 million.
Deborah graduated from Elmira College in New York, earned a Masters of Arts from the University of Vienna, and completed further graduate studies at Yale. Highly regarded on the national arts scene, she has served on numerous panels for the National Endowment of the Arts, the South Carolina Arts Commission, and the Vermont Commission for the Arts, the Connecticut Commission for the Arts, and The Association of Entertainment Professionals (AEP) Worldwide.
Beaufort native Valerie Sayers is the author of six novels, including her most recent, The Powers. Brain Fever and Who Do You Love? were named “Notable Books” by the New York Times, and a film, Due East, was based on Due East and How I Got Him Back. Her stories and essays appear widely and have received a Pushcart Prize and citations from Best American Stories and Best American Essays. Recipient of an NEA fellowship in literature, Sayers is professor of English at the University of Notre Dame.
Sean A. Scapellato is a partner at Cobb Dill & Hammett Law Firm in Mount Pleasant, SC. Prior to practicing law, Sean taught middle and high school English and creative writing, working at Porter-Gaud School and Charleston County School of the Arts. His students consistently received national awards for their writing, and he coordinated visiting writers series at both schools. As an attorney, Sean practices mostly in the areas of real estate, estate planning, and probate. He and Pat Conroy were friends for several decades. During that time, Conroy’s mentorship and influence were instrumental in his development as a novelist, essayist, and teacher. Sean continues to publish his work periodically and serve as an instructor and panelist at PCLC events and conferences. He lives in Charleston with his wife Sara.
Luke Parker Bowles chair of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts New York, CEO of Scoundrel Films, and president of production at Story Mining & Supply Co. Parker Bowles previously served as executive vice president of production for Open Road Integrated Media, a digital publisher and multimedia content company whose authors include Pat Conroy, William Styron, Alice Walker, James Jones, and Pearl S. Buck. Hailing from London, Parker Bowles studied at the University of London, Yale University, and Carnegie Mellon University. In 1999, he began his film-industry career at International Creative Management (ICM), London. Now an established executive in both the United Kingdom and the United States, Parker Bowles has developed and managed a diverse slate of films for major studios and independent companies alike, including Working Title Films, Hart Sharp Entertainment, and Sharp Independent at HarperCollins. In the creative department of Working Title, Parker Bowles was involved in the development of such hit films as Chris and Paul Weitz’s About a Boy, Beeban Kidron’s Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, Joe Wright’s Pride & Prejudice and Atonement, Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth: The Golden Age, and Richard Curtis’s Love Actually. Parker Bowles is also a board member of the Montclair Film Festival and the Queen Elizabeth II September 11th Garden.
Born in Ohio, Marilyn Harcharik graduated from Duke in 1969 with a degree in Psychology. After Duke, she moved to Washington DC, where she worked as a computer programmer at Goddard Space Flight Center on the Apollo and Skylab Missions. While in DC she earned her Master’s Degree in Technology and Management from The American University.
In addition to her work in computer programming, she held a position with General Electric, working both as a strategic planner and in International Policies and Procedures. She later worked in marketing at GTE before becoming VP of marketing at MCI, the telecommunications company.
From 1984 through 1990 she ran her own business selling computers as well as offering training and consulting services.
Semi-retired, Marilyn settled in Hilton Head where for six years she experienced the gated community lifestyle (Long Cove) and sold real estate. She later moved to the Landings in Savannah, a gated community of 8,000 residents where she spent seven years and where she expanded her volunteer work, including assisting at a Safe Shelter for victims of Domestic Abuse and working on several major fund raising events for that organization, including an event at Savannah State with notable animal expert, zoologist and television personality Jack Hannah, and in helping organize a Temptations fundraising concert at the Savanah Civic Center. At the Landings she also served as the new neighbor connection for readers, in charge of helping place interested new arrivals into local book clubs.
After moving to Beaufort in 2003, Marilyn continued to take on projects in service to her community, including:
– Setting up and managing two golf tournaments at Dataw for Palmetto Animal League, a non-profit.
– Co-Chairing Books Sandwiched In for the Friends of the Library 2004-2009
– Serving as President of Friends of the Library for five years: 2009 and again 2014 – 2017.
– Joining the Beaufort Memorial Hospital Foundation Board from 2005-2014 and serving as board Secretary.
– Volunteering at the St Peter’s Food Pantry.
– Completing the Beaufort Senior Leadership training in 2016; she currently is involved in an Alumni organization of this program for community engagement.