The AOI Officers and Directors ~ 2025-2026
President: Dr. Cynthia (Cindy) Gueli - 2025-2026, has served since 2022
Cindy Gueli is a historian, author, and historical consultant for TV and film. Her academic teaching and research focuses on U.S. cultural, political, and women’s history with an emphasis on Washington, D.C. Her book Lipstick Brigade: The Untold True Story of Washington's World War II Government Girls has been optioned for television. Cindy holds a B.A. from Georgetown University, a Masters in Communications and Master's and Ph.D. in History from American University. Her family connections to D.C. go back several generations: her great-grandfather worked as a stonemason on the National Cathedral; grandmother graduated from Providence Hospital Nursing School; and father coordinated PADC development activity on projects such as the Willard Hotel (at which Cindy later created its history exhibit) and Old Post Office Pavilion. |
Vice-President: John Edwards - 2025-2026, has served since 2022
John Edwards is a native Washingtonian, with roots in Georgetown back to the 1820s, including a great-grandfather member of AOI. A product of Montgomery County public schools, he holds a degree in history & political science from UVa and an M. Arch from U Md., and is currently a principal with Bonstra Haresign Architects in the Shaw/U Street neighborhood, where his work includes multi-family housing, institutional and commercial projects with a focus on sustainable design. A longtime resident of Capitol Hill with his husband and son, he has been active over the years with Whitman-Walker Clinic, Washington Architectural Foundation, Capitol Hill Community Foundation, St. Mark’s Church Capitol Hill, AIA/DC, Capitol Hill Cluster School, Duke Ellington School of the Arts, and the National Architectural Accrediting Board. |
Secretary: Ric Marino - 2025-2026, has served since 2022
Treasurer: Carolyn Michell - 2025-2026, has served since 2022
Carolyn Chapman Michell is a second-generation native Washingtonian. She was educated in D.C. public schools, studied economics at American University, and earned an M.A. in economics at the University of Maryland. Besides working in the field of economics in D.C., Carolyn has served on the board of local civic organizations. She is a Deacon at Northminster Presbyterian Church in D.C., which she grew up attending. She became involved in AOI leadership at the encouragement of her late father, former AOI member Clinton Chapman, to continue the legacy of her late mother and father's commitment to civic engagement and historic preservation in Washington, D.C. Carolyn is married to Dr. Antonio Michell, and they have two children, Cara, a professor at Northeastern University, and Alex, an actor. |
Historian: Nelson Rimensnyder - 2025-2026, has served since 2000
Nelson Rimensnyder began his career with the Congressional Research Service in 1971 soon after arriving in Washington. There, he was assigned to work with the House Committee on the District of Columbia as it began writing legislation providing Home Rule to the District of Columbia for the first time in 100 years. Following enactment of this landmark law, Nelson was hired by Chairman Charles Diggs to serve as Director of Research for the Committee. Since retiring, Nelson has continued civic activism and advocacy in Washington on behalf of voting representation in Congress, historic preservation, and local government issues. He is currently cataloguing his unique collection of books, documents, government reports, and political memorabilia comprising the New Columbia Archives to prepare for their acquisition by the DC History Center. On November 13, 2024, Nelson and DC History Center Director Laura Brower Hagood pen the Deed of Gift transferring Nelson's meticulously organized and curated collection to the Kiplinger Research Library Archives of the DCHC. [Photos courtesy of Bill Rice]
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Director: Kimberly Bender - 2023-2025
Kimberly Bender is a cultural administrator and public historian who reinterprets established narratives. Over the last decade, she has transformed the Heurich House Museum into a vibrant and inclusive space that explores (im)migration, labor, and the American experience. Key to Ms. Bender’s work is her background as an attorney, which has not only helped her reinvent organizations, but assists in her DC history research. Her public history work currently focuses on the “lost” Chevy Chase neighborhood of Belmont and DC education leader, Myrtilla Miner. Kim is a current appointee of the DC Council’s Archives Advisory Group, and founder of the DC Archives Advocates, and is working to get a new purpose-built state archives for the District of Columbia. |
Director: Gary Scott 2023-2025, has served since 2013
Gary Scott came to Washington DC in 1971 to work as research assistant to the Clerk of the Works at Washington Cathedral, doing research for stone carvers and stained-glass artists in iconography for the building of the cathedral. In 1975 he volunteered for the Jimmy Carter Presidential campaign, attending the Democratic National Convention, and serving in the presidential transition in the Interior Department. He began a 34-year career in the National Park Service, first in the inventory of historic buildings, then as historian, National Capital Region, finally as Regional Historian, National Capital Region, working with National Parks in Washington DC and surrounding counties, the national monuments and memorials, and Civil War battlefields. He served for 30 years as bus tour leader for the Smithsonian Resident Associates, leading tours to historic sites and houses DC, Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, North Carolina, and West Virginia. For 20 years he served on the planning committee of the DC Conference of Historical Studies. He brought into public view the Clara Barton Civil War Apartment and helped it get established as a museum in downtown Washington, DC. He did restoration work on the House Where Lincoln Died across from Ford's Theater and the Pry House Federal Headquarters at Antietam National Battlefield. He retired in 2012 and is a member of the Cosmos Club. |
Director: Sherri Sewell - 2023-2025
Sherri Sewall is a 5th generation Washingtonian who grew up in Southeast Washington, DC and currently lives in N.W. She attended D.C. Public Schools and during her junior year at H. D. Woodson Sr. High school, was accepted into the Hi-Skip program and attended The University of the District of Columbia during her senior year. She graduated from U.D.C. with a bachelor’s in business management and immediately began to take courses to become a certified educator in D.C. Public Schools. She trained Customer Service Representatives at Blue Cross Blue Shield of the National Capital Area while simultaneously gaining her teaching credentials in Washington, DC. In April of 1991, she began teaching in D.C. Public Schools and has had the honor of educating children for the past thirty-two years in D.C., Roanoke, Virginia, and Stone Mountain, Georgia. Her great grandfather George T. Sewall, MD helped to start AOI for colored residents along with Jerome A. Johnson who was married to George’s sister, her Great Aunt Glovina Sewall Johnson. Her great-great grandfather John Bond Blake was a past president of AOI and according to family lore, was the father of all 7 of her great-great grandmother Caroline Sewall’s children. She says, “I am honored to be a part of the Board of AOI and will undertake this mission with determination and pleasure.” |

Directors: Sisters Patricia Tyson and Theresa Saxton Representing the Military Road School Preservation Trust as Institutional Directors - 2025-2026
Patricia (Pat) and Theresa were born in the District of Columbia and lived in the Capitol Hill area with their parents, Lawrence and Alice Tyson, until the ages of 2 and 4 when the family moved to the small African American community of Lyttonsville in Silver Spring, Maryland, in 1946.
Montgomery County public schools, like those throughout the Country, were racially segregated. Because DC public schools had better resources than the small neighborhood colored school available in Lyttonsville, their parents decided to pay tuition for them to attend the Military Road School, a colored elementary school located in northwest DC, which they would later learn their father, who was also raised in Silver Spring, had attended. After the Supreme Court issued its 1954 ruling which desegregated public schools, both attended Montgomery Hills Junior High School and Montgomery Blair Senior High School located in Silver Spring. Patricia also received her Associate of Arts degree from Montgomery Junior College in Takoma Park.
Both sisters had successful Federal Government careers and retired in 2002—Patricia from the Department of State and Theresa from the Department of Labor. As adults, both still share an interest in history, which began with fellow Military Road School alumni successfully having their 1912 school building listed on the D.C. Inventory of Historic Sites and subsequently on the National Register of Historic Places. The Military Road School Alumni Association evolved into the Military Road School Preservation Trust, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, which continues to honor the School’s legacy through awarding annual scholarships to assist local students pursuing a college degree or vocational career.
Patricia still resides in Lyttonsville, now a multi-cultural community currently engaged in establishing a museum to document its historic past, which began with the purchase of a parcel of land in 1853 by a free black laborer named Samuel Lytton. The sisters also promote Civil War history as re-enactors with the Female RE-Enactors of Distinction (FREED), an auxiliary of the African American Civil War Museum in Washington, D.C.
Patricia (Pat) and Theresa were born in the District of Columbia and lived in the Capitol Hill area with their parents, Lawrence and Alice Tyson, until the ages of 2 and 4 when the family moved to the small African American community of Lyttonsville in Silver Spring, Maryland, in 1946.
Montgomery County public schools, like those throughout the Country, were racially segregated. Because DC public schools had better resources than the small neighborhood colored school available in Lyttonsville, their parents decided to pay tuition for them to attend the Military Road School, a colored elementary school located in northwest DC, which they would later learn their father, who was also raised in Silver Spring, had attended. After the Supreme Court issued its 1954 ruling which desegregated public schools, both attended Montgomery Hills Junior High School and Montgomery Blair Senior High School located in Silver Spring. Patricia also received her Associate of Arts degree from Montgomery Junior College in Takoma Park.
Both sisters had successful Federal Government careers and retired in 2002—Patricia from the Department of State and Theresa from the Department of Labor. As adults, both still share an interest in history, which began with fellow Military Road School alumni successfully having their 1912 school building listed on the D.C. Inventory of Historic Sites and subsequently on the National Register of Historic Places. The Military Road School Alumni Association evolved into the Military Road School Preservation Trust, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, which continues to honor the School’s legacy through awarding annual scholarships to assist local students pursuing a college degree or vocational career.
Patricia still resides in Lyttonsville, now a multi-cultural community currently engaged in establishing a museum to document its historic past, which began with the purchase of a parcel of land in 1853 by a free black laborer named Samuel Lytton. The sisters also promote Civil War history as re-enactors with the Female RE-Enactors of Distinction (FREED), an auxiliary of the African American Civil War Museum in Washington, D.C.

Director: Patricia Clark - 2025-2025
[Bio is coming]
[Bio is coming]

Director: Juliette Smith - 2025-2026; Previously served 2000-2002
My father's WWII participation in the medical response to D-DAY gave him the logistical know-how to become the Director of the Red Cross which is how I came to grow up in Washington, DC. My family hailed from NC. and TN. My mother was Miss North Carolina in 1934 but there is no record of her because my Victorian grandparents refused to let her appear in a bathing suit in public. But the engraved Loving Cup is now in the Raleigh Museum. My father was a country doctor until he was drafted. I attended DC Public Schools: Lafayette, Deal, and Wilson, now renamed Jackson Reed. I got a BA from American University and Masters from UDC. I taught art at Wilson; then my husband and I had a business selling smoke detectors. His Armstrong Vocational and Bureau of Standards background as a machinist and in fire research was a good fit for a later period of home renovation. We purchased and renovated two homes in Columbia Heights, and after his passing I renovated one in Petworth and another in Anacostia with the help of a wonderful local contractor who owned Precision Cabinets.
The first time I heard of AOI from Bill Ellenberger, a member and the father of a childhood girlfriend, I laughed because I thought it was so silly. Then as a member of PEPCO's Community and Education Services I saw it in a different light. I joyfully joined to enhance my life and to allow me to provide PEPCO resources to the community. Will I live down my chairpersonship of the BUSINESS LEGEND'S AWARD COMMITTEE? I continued the committee's annual honor of a local business, and worked with the business to publish a laudatory booklet about it, printed by the PEPCO Print Shop. Sholl's Cafeteria and the Hecht Company were wonderful, but no more. The now discontinued Award became the KISS OF DEATH AWARD1 and I retired from PEPCO so it was discontinued.
I am particularly proud of being a member of two DC groups at their founding: The Washington Revels and Christmas in April. Revels is a group that celebrates seasonal community drama, particularly the Solstice and the May celebration. Christmas in April is now renamed ReBuilding Together. That is a one-day home repair program for Senior Citizens who own their homes but are on fixed incomes and have difficulty maintaining them. Churches and local businesses sponsored homes and provided volunteers to do the work; plumbing, roofing, electrical and other trades volunteered their services also. The name change was because Jewish synagogues wanted to participate also and we changed the name to ensure the comfort level of all who served under our banner.
AOI is definitely not silly and I am proud to have been a past Board Member and now a present one. It is a proud association that has tracked over the years the development of Washington and participated in support of WWI Memorial of DC participation and other local events. And I remember fondly the September Reflections of yesteryear. A cherished tidbit is the knowledge that young boys living in Georgetown used to walk across the UNFENCED White House lawn and be asked to walk the President's dogs on their way to attend the F street movie theaters. And, returning the dogs, were treated to milk and cookies in the kitchen. Under the formality of the beautiful city there is a neighborhood humanity.2
1 – AOI’s Past-President Bill Brown provided the “Kiss of Death Award” moniker to the Business Legends Award after the awardee-businesses went out of business soon after, including Gault Jewelers. Another BLA went to the Kiplinger Family for their outstanding support of DC’s history which continues today.
2 – Frolicking on the un-fenced White House lawn was the endearing, often repeated recollection of AOI member Marcus Ring.
My father's WWII participation in the medical response to D-DAY gave him the logistical know-how to become the Director of the Red Cross which is how I came to grow up in Washington, DC. My family hailed from NC. and TN. My mother was Miss North Carolina in 1934 but there is no record of her because my Victorian grandparents refused to let her appear in a bathing suit in public. But the engraved Loving Cup is now in the Raleigh Museum. My father was a country doctor until he was drafted. I attended DC Public Schools: Lafayette, Deal, and Wilson, now renamed Jackson Reed. I got a BA from American University and Masters from UDC. I taught art at Wilson; then my husband and I had a business selling smoke detectors. His Armstrong Vocational and Bureau of Standards background as a machinist and in fire research was a good fit for a later period of home renovation. We purchased and renovated two homes in Columbia Heights, and after his passing I renovated one in Petworth and another in Anacostia with the help of a wonderful local contractor who owned Precision Cabinets.
The first time I heard of AOI from Bill Ellenberger, a member and the father of a childhood girlfriend, I laughed because I thought it was so silly. Then as a member of PEPCO's Community and Education Services I saw it in a different light. I joyfully joined to enhance my life and to allow me to provide PEPCO resources to the community. Will I live down my chairpersonship of the BUSINESS LEGEND'S AWARD COMMITTEE? I continued the committee's annual honor of a local business, and worked with the business to publish a laudatory booklet about it, printed by the PEPCO Print Shop. Sholl's Cafeteria and the Hecht Company were wonderful, but no more. The now discontinued Award became the KISS OF DEATH AWARD1 and I retired from PEPCO so it was discontinued.
I am particularly proud of being a member of two DC groups at their founding: The Washington Revels and Christmas in April. Revels is a group that celebrates seasonal community drama, particularly the Solstice and the May celebration. Christmas in April is now renamed ReBuilding Together. That is a one-day home repair program for Senior Citizens who own their homes but are on fixed incomes and have difficulty maintaining them. Churches and local businesses sponsored homes and provided volunteers to do the work; plumbing, roofing, electrical and other trades volunteered their services also. The name change was because Jewish synagogues wanted to participate also and we changed the name to ensure the comfort level of all who served under our banner.
AOI is definitely not silly and I am proud to have been a past Board Member and now a present one. It is a proud association that has tracked over the years the development of Washington and participated in support of WWI Memorial of DC participation and other local events. And I remember fondly the September Reflections of yesteryear. A cherished tidbit is the knowledge that young boys living in Georgetown used to walk across the UNFENCED White House lawn and be asked to walk the President's dogs on their way to attend the F street movie theaters. And, returning the dogs, were treated to milk and cookies in the kitchen. Under the formality of the beautiful city there is a neighborhood humanity.2
1 – AOI’s Past-President Bill Brown provided the “Kiss of Death Award” moniker to the Business Legends Award after the awardee-businesses went out of business soon after, including Gault Jewelers. Another BLA went to the Kiplinger Family for their outstanding support of DC’s history which continues today.
2 – Frolicking on the un-fenced White House lawn was the endearing, often repeated recollection of AOI member Marcus Ring.

Past-President: William N. (Bill) Brown
Bill Brown is a 5th-generation Washingtonian, a product of the DC Public Schools, and was graduated from American University with Ba's in Television/Film and Psychology. After serving as Program Director for WAMU-FM in the mid-70's he spent the next 26 years in law enforcement rising to the rank of Deputy Chief of Police for Fairfax County. Upon retirement he was a seasonal interpretive Park Ranger for the C&O Canal National Historical Park until the demise of The Georgetown canal boat in 2011. He has served as a trustee for the Historical Society of DC and served on the, now, DC History Center’s Collections Committee. He served for twenty years as President of the Association of the Oldest Inhabitants of the District of Columbia from 1999 to 2019. He currently serves as a Past-President of the organization.
Bill Brown is a 5th-generation Washingtonian, a product of the DC Public Schools, and was graduated from American University with Ba's in Television/Film and Psychology. After serving as Program Director for WAMU-FM in the mid-70's he spent the next 26 years in law enforcement rising to the rank of Deputy Chief of Police for Fairfax County. Upon retirement he was a seasonal interpretive Park Ranger for the C&O Canal National Historical Park until the demise of The Georgetown canal boat in 2011. He has served as a trustee for the Historical Society of DC and served on the, now, DC History Center’s Collections Committee. He served for twenty years as President of the Association of the Oldest Inhabitants of the District of Columbia from 1999 to 2019. He currently serves as a Past-President of the organization.
Past-President: Jan A. K. Evans
Jan Evans is the granddaughter of renowned District brewer Christian Heurich; she spent her early years living the Heurich Mansion at 1307 New Hampshire Avenue, NW. She was for many years a US "Diplomatic" daughter and wife serving overseas in Japan and Cuba. Jan was not only the first female member of the AOI of DC but was elected the organization's first woman President in 2019. |