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Board of Trustees

Amy Costner-Lark serves on the board as a parent. She has one daughter who attends SMES.

Amy is the Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs at The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, College of Nursing. In addition to her educational and administrative roles at OU, she also practices as a Family Nurse Practitioner in the Department of Geriatrics. 

She is the founder and president of Costner Medical Missions, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization where her team provides medical and dental care in Ecuador, Peru and the Galapagos Islands.

Tom is a former SMES parent, his daughter, Mackenzie, attended SMES for six years. This is Tom’s second stint on the Board, having served previously in 2012.

He is an attorney by profession. In addition to being in private practice in Oklahoma City, he retired after 31 years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney. While a federal attorney, he served a detail to the Department of Justice Office of Legal Education where he planned and taught legal skills and substantive law programs for DOJ attorneys. He later served as the Director for all DOJ legal training and was the DOJ representative for ABA Rule of Law training for Russian and Ukrainian prosecutors after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Tom has regularly taught at DOJ’s National Advocacy Institute on the campus of the University of South Carolina as well as at private continuing legal education courses all over the country. He served in several management positions in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in OKC and was a legal management evaluator for other U.S. Attorneys Offices around the country.

Dr. Linda Mason has an Ed.D. in Curriculum and Instruction. She has been a Board member since 2022 and currently serves as an Episcopalian church member of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church. 

She is retired from higher education and public teaching. Her most recent position was Grant Coordinator for the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education. She has been a Professor of Education and has provided much professional development for k-12 school and college teachers.

Susan is a new board member in 2024. She has a granddaughter who has been attending St. Mary’s for five years. 
Susan retired in 2018 from her position as Director of the Genetic Counseling Program in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. She was responsible for directing activities related to Genetic Counseling in the areas of clinical service, education, and research activities. Her scholarly work can be found on Google Scholar. Her plans following retirement were to spend more time developing her art and pursuing interests around homelessness. 
She has been using photography for artistic expression over the past 40 years and began working in sculpture during the 1990s. Her work has been shown in juried exhibitions as well as solo and group shows. She will have work at the Contemporary Art Gallery on Paseo during February and March of 2025. Her website is ironwood-art.net.
In 2021 working with her husband, Mohamad Shaaf, Susan initiated the formation of the Drs Shaaf & Hassed Housing Assistance Foundation (shfound.org) and has obtained 501(c)3 classification. The foundational belief is that everyone should have a home. 


 

Mary Hendrick serves on the SMES Board as an Episcopalian member. She has served since 2018, including as Vice-President of the Board and Secretary. She chairs the School-Church Committee.

Emily Hendrickson, P.E., ASEP is a Senior Systems Engineer at KBR and parent of a St. Mary’s student. She has served on the board since 2023 as a parent member. Emily has a background in mechanical engineering, focusing on sustainment engineering and cross-disciplinary engineering management. She holds an M.S. in Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines. In addition to her work as a systems engineer, Emily serves as a board member for KBR’s internal employee advocacy group, ASPIRE, which seeks to mentor and promote women in leadership within the company.

Denise Kisthardt is new to the board in 2023 and serves as Episcopalian member. Denise and her family have been members of the St. Mary's community since moving to Oklahoma in 2005. Prior to moving to Oklahoma, Denise spent over a decade as a prosecutor and land-use attorney for the City of Phoenix. After staying home full time with her two sons for the better part of a decade, she made the transition to a middle school English teacher, and is in her 10th year of teaching.

Michele Koopman is a parent board member. Michele has a Bachelor of Science from the University of Central Oklahoma and attended Metro Technology Center for Radiologic Technology. Having worked at OU Medical Center in Vascular Interventional Radiology for almost a decade, Michele now volunteers her time to the school and community. Michele has served as Treasurer of the Historic Preservation Trust for the City of Edmond and currently sits
on the City of Edmond Visual Arts Commission. When not volunteering, she is a Visual Artist with Edmond Vibes art community.

Ryan McGann serves on the board as an SMES alumni and a parent of three SMES alumni. Ryan's children attended SMES between 2009 and 2024. He has served on the board since 2017, including as Vice President and President of the board (2019-2021). He also chairs the Building and Grounds and Site Planning Committees. He is the owner and operator of Citadel Restoration Services.

Carolyn Newman serves as a member of the Board of Trustees as an Episcopal Church Member. As a retired educator, she holds a Master of Education Degree with post-graduate studies in Educational Assessment and Evaluation. Her past public education experience includes classroom teacher, guidance counselor, certified educational diagnostician, public school superintendent and Assistant State Superintendent for the New Mexico Department of Public Education. She devoted much of her career to serving students with special needs. After retiring from public education, she accepted a position with a private company as a certified trainer for the
Barton Reading and Spelling System, a scientific research-based program for individuals with Dyslexia. She and her husband, Pat, moved to Edmond in 2020 where they attend St. Mary’s Episcopal Church of Edmond.

As Senior Warden at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church of Edmond, Patrick Newman (Pat) serves as an ex-officio member of the St. Mary’s Episcopal school. Patrick became a member of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in January 2021, transferring from Saint Michael’s and All Angels in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Patrick earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from New Mexico Highlands University in Las Vegas, New Mexico and attended Anderson School of Business in Albuquerque, New Mexico. A native of New Mexico, Patrick moved to San Antonio, Texas in 2011 with his wife Carolyn to become the Executive Director of Workforce for one of the seven
largest board areas in the State. His forty-year career in federal workforce training and employment programs afforded him extensive experience in program design and implementation, policy development, regulation compliance and contract management. Prior to his career in workforce, he served as a police officer, promoted to Sergeant and Lieutenant prior to leaving the Las Vegas Police Department in 1974 after receiving his degree.

Fr. Mark was called to serve the St. Mary’s community in 2002. His two daughters, Morgan and Katherine, graduated from SMES and are now married and working in Ponca City and Minneapolis, MN, respectively. Their pictures are included in the school portrait hanging in Taylor Hall. Fr. Mark previously served parishes in Kalamazoo and Traverse City, MI before being called as the Rector of The Episcopal Church of the Redeemer and Headmaster of Redeemer Montessori School in Irving, TX. Fr. Mark’s responsibilities at SMES include overseeing the religious and spiritual elements of the school, facilitating weekly chapel, and serving as an ex-officio Board member. His Board responsibilities include serving as the Chair of the Governance Committee. He absolutely loves watching God working in the lives our SMES students and continually gives thanks for our highly competent and dedicated teachers and staff.

Dr. Ashley Weedn, MD, MPH has been a Board member since 2019 and currently serves as an Episcopalian and parent alumni. She has had two children who attended SMES for six years; her oldest graduated from SMES in May 2022.  Dr. Weedn is a pediatrician, researcher, and Associate Professor at OU Health/OUHSC.

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