Penny Arentsen has been a WCESD Board Member since 2017. She grew up a Hoosier in Indiana and traveled west to Colorado for her undergraduate at Colorado College (1996, BA, Geology). Following a Masters in Watershed Science (2005, Utah State University), she moved to Joseph with her husband, Paul. She helped develop the natural resource education programming at Wallowa Resources from 2004 - 2010 while also assisting her husband with their rafting business, Winding Waters River Expeditions. Adding kids to the mix in 2010 and 2014 made life way more fun and she has enjoyed the best job of being a mom. Currently, she is a Natural Resource Specialist for Anderson Perry & Associates. She volunteers in the community as a ski patroller, Enterprise-Joseph Lions Club Member, 4H Leader, and in her position on the WCESD Board. In her free time, you’ll find her with her family on a horse, on a bike, in a raft, or hiking with our dogs. 

Vearl Lewis is the Wallowa County ESD Zone 5 Board Member. He was appointed to the board in 2018. Vearl has lived in Wallowa his entire life, graduating from Wallowa High School in 1971. Vearl went to college at Eastern Oregon University and graduated in 1994. He then stepped back into the Wallowa school system as an elementary teacher. After teaching for 22 years, Vearl retired in 2016. He enjoys spending time with his three grandchildren, going to the Oregon Coast, hunting, fishing, and enjoying all of the beauty Wallowa County has to offer. 

Breanne, or "Bre", Austin grew up in the Walla Walla Valley, often coming over to the Wallowas for camping and backpacking trips. With a schoolteacher mom, a dad who helped to run a family business and a grandmother who worked for the local paper- being involved in the community was a constant and Bre appreciated the opportunity to practice community involvement at an early age. Bre attended Whitman College and then spent several years up and down the I-5 corridor, working as a professional seamstress and nanny while competing on a club ultimate frisbee team. After years of coaching youth ultimate and helping her charges with homework she decided to pursue a teaching degree and graduated from Lewis and Clark School of Education shortly thereafter. When, several years later,  the opportunity arose to move with her family back to the east side- Bre and her husband, Wes, took it. They have been here, along with their two kids, for nearly a decade and still can't get enough of waking up to the mountains each day. Bre is grateful for the opportunity to serve Wallowa County as an ESD board member and hopes that the community continues to realize the great work that the ESD does to support local school districts.