Third Annual Symposium on Small Towns

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Bliss is founder and President of Imagine Chicago, an innovative civic project founded in 1992 that has inspired a global movement on six continents (www.imaginechicago.org). She is an ordained Episcopal priest, and was formerly a corporate banking Vice President and Division Head at the First National Bank of Chicago where she worked from 1975-1991.

Her civic leadership positions have included serving as Chairman of the Center for Neighborhood Technology and of the MidAmerica Leadership Foundation; Trustee of the Chicago Sunday Evening Club; and Advisory Board member of Public Allies, Archeworks, Chicago Children's Choir, Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions, the Illinois Fatherhood Initiative, and the Community Advisory boards of the Field Museum and the Chicago Historical Society. She also served on the Illinois Governor's Public-Private Child Care Council and the Presiding Bishop's Consultation on Reconciliation. She was the first female priest ever to preach at Westminster Abbey, in 1979, and has served in parish ministry in Chicago for 30 years. She was one of 24 members of the Saguaro Seminar on Civic Engagement in America, a two-year forum at the Harvard Kennedy School that recognized national innovators in developing social capital. She is a sought after keynote speaker, facilitator, consultant and trainer nationally and internationally.

She holds degrees from Yale (B.A. 1971 in History), Harvard Divinity School (M.Div. 1974 in Theology), and Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern (M.M. 1978 in Finance). Awards include: Rockefeller Fellow 1972, Kellogg National Leadership Fellow 1988-91, two Eureka Community Awards 1995-96, the Chicago Mercedes Mentor Award 1998, and the Chicago Justice Pioneer Award 2003. She is married with three young adult children.

Publications include "Cultivating Hope and Imagination" in Vimukh Shiksha and the Journal of Future Studies in 2001 and "Liberating Imagination about Aging," in Foresight in 2003. She is also author of two books: "Ten Years of Imagination in Action", a conceptual framework for imagination as a social movement and "Women Alive: A Legacy of Social Justice." She can be contacted at bliss@imaginechicago.org.

Dr. Jones also is a professor Agronomy and Plant Genetics and an internationally recognized authority on corn physiology. His research focuses on stabilizing grain yield against environmental stresses such as heat and water. He has been a visiting professor in England, China, and Morocco and has been a featured speaker at noteworthy symposia in the United States, England, Mexico, Africa, Canada, and the Czech Republic. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Agronomy and the Crop Science Society of America and has published more than 100 scientific papers, manuscripts, and abstracts.

Dr. Jones has been a strong leader for diversity initiatives at the University of Minnesota, in the United States, and in the world. He has twice sponsored a national symposium called Keeping Our Faculties: Addressing the Recruitment and Retention of Faculty of Color. And at the height of the contentious battle over apartheid, Dr. Jones worked with Archbishop Desmond Tutu for ten years to provide black South African students with opportunities to attend U.S. colleges and universities, including the University of Minnesota. Dr. Jones also served as an academic and scientific consultant for Archbishop Tutu's South African Education Program.

Dr. Jones received a bachelor's degree in agronomy from Fort Valley State University in Georgia, a master's degree in crop physiology from the University of Georgia, and a doctorate from the University of Missouri in crop physiology.

McCallum is president of the Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors, a national journalism organization dedicated to improving statehouse coverage around the country. She is the past president of the Northwest Broadcast News Association, a regional news organization representing six states. McCallum, a native of Bismarck, North Dakota, graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of North Dakota.

Michael Skoler, an award-winning former editor and correspondent for National Public Radio, has been named managing director of news for Minnesota Public Radio®. Skoler will lead Minnesota Public Radio's interactive journalism initiative, which aims to strengthen news coverage by drawing on audience expertise. He will also serve as project director for the second Public Radio Collaboration, a coalition of stations, producers and networks across the country that share programs and coordinate their schedules to create special coverage on critical national issues. Skoler worked for 15 years as a reporter in radio, television and print before moving into management five years ago. He joined NPR in 1987 and spent a decade there as an editor, science correspondent and foreign correspondent. Skoler has been honored with an Alfred I. Dupont-Columbia University Silver Baton and a Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Award for his reporting in Africa, a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard and numerous awards for his science reporting. As a science correspondent, he was known for his often funny and irreverent storytelling.

After leaving NPR in 1997, Skoler earned an MBA as a Batten Media Fellow at the University of Virginia. He then joined the consulting firm McKinsey and Company in Seattle and Boston, working with senior executives of media, education and technology companies to set strategy, create online businesses and turn around money-losing units.

Mayor, City of Morris. Occupations (past and present): retired teacher of 34 years. Taught in Moorhead, Hancock and Morris.Community involvement: Morris City Council 18-1/2 years; Morris mayor the past 6-1/2 years; served on the HRA board, Salvation Army board, Hospice Advisory Committee, on board of directors of Morris Chamber of Commerce, member of Faith Lutheran Church.