Brenda Fraser

Brenda has more than 28 years experience in nonprofit fund raising, public relations, and marketing. She has tremendous energy and is known for helping individuals, and groups, see “ABUNDANCE” by coaching and motivating them to achieve their goals.

As President of her own business called Gala Force Events, Brenda has consulted with many nonprofit organizations including St. Louis based groups such as the USO at Lambert Airport, Discovering Options, Institute for Family Medicine, and the World Trade Center; as well as small businesses such as Brightstar Care, Success Partners Worldwide, and Global Vision Strategies.

Before moving to Missouri in 2004, Brenda was a Vice President for New Business Opportunities at Blacktie-Colorado.com, a website providing communication tools and technology support to nonprofit organizations. While living in Colorado for 6 years, she worked with the American Red Cross, Boulder County AIDS Project, and the Colorado Symphony Association. She was named “Professional Woman of the Year” in 2003 by the Colorado Business Council.

Prior to that, she lived in Washington, D.C. for 14 years. Brenda worked with the American Cancer Society and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum during its inaugural year where she successfully launched a $1.5 million dollar campaign. Brenda has helped several nonprofits get started including Citizens Against Speeding and Aggressive Driving, Center for Visionary Leadership, the Imagine Peace Foundation and more recently, The Atai Orphanage, for children in Uganda.

Brenda’s passion is helping others overcome obstacles to succeed in business and in life.

As Past President of the St. Charles County ZONTA International club of, she established a scholarship fund at St. Charles Community College Foundation for a “returning woman” to pursue a higher degree. She believes education is one key to success.

As a Delegate to two Zonta International Conventions, she was able to travel to Australia in 2006 and the Netherlands in 2008. In April 2008, she was named theHelen Briscoe Spirit Award winner for Zonta. She initiated the Yellow Rose Awardsfor an outstanding woman of St. Charles, holding four annual events to date and raising more than $20,000 for scholarship funds and service projects.

Brenda served as Secretary of the Founding Board of the Atai Orphanage, raising funds to build an orphanage in northern Uganda, Africa. In 2007, Brenda was a co-host of a weekly radio show on WGNU 920 AM called “Women Inspiring Women.” In her spare time, she creates jewelry with stones from around the world, under the business name “Butterfly and Moon Designs”.

Brenda was recently published in “The Seven Points of Impact”, an anthology of 52 authors who write about personal development and transformation.

With all these many personal and professional achievements, it’s no wonder Brenda received in 2010 Streetscape Magazine’s “Beyond the Best Award” as one of the Top 50 businesses in St. Charles County, MO.

You can find Brenda on the Web:
Published in: www.7PointsofImpact.com Chapter: “Help is On the Way”
Strategic Partner: www.GiveBackOffers.com
Home Site: www.GalaForceEvents.com
Twitter: Galaforcellc

Chris Duggan

Chris Duggan has made his living as a writer in the journalism and public relations industries since 1989 and is currently public relations coordinator at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, where he lives with his two kids. He earned an MFA in writing from Lindenwood in 2012 and has since been rejected by some of the finest literary journals in the country. His work has appeared in Stymie Magazine and the Fast Forward Press anthology Flash 101: Surviving the Fiction Apocalypse. His story, “Her Favorite Color,” was adapted for Denver’s Stories on Stage Project in 2012, and his story, “The Release Point,” was a finalist in Glimmer Train’s spring 2014 Family Matters contest. In his spare time, he enjoys running and playing vintage base ball, which represents the game as it was played in 1860.

Louis Launer

About the author:
L.J. Launer is a writer and historian who grew up in St. Charles, Missouri. He is a graduate of St. Charles West High School and holds a BA in Mass Communications from Lindenwood University. He has researched and written history for various historical publications in St. Charles and in the Pacific Northwest. He has also been a sportswriter covering minor league and high school sports for various publications and web sites in the Midwest and the Great Lakes. He currently lives in St. Peters, Missouri. This is his first novel.

Sherrie Hill

Sherrie Hill was born in Southeastern Illinois, near Hickory Hill (The Old Slave House). Her grandmother and great-aunts instilled the importance of knowing the past. The teaching tools they used were storytelling and piling the children in the back of an old pickup truck and hitting the back roads, on what would usually be the hottest, driest, dustiest days of summer, to visit the old country settlements of their youth. (‘Visiting’ meant driving by, telling stories and stopping if there was still an old country store that sold ‘ice cold’ Coca Cola, then heading off to the next settlement.) Growing up in a time when children were to be ‘seen and not heard’ lends to a lot of listening.