Church Council Bios

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Jon Montan

President

Jon Montan grew up in Upper Montclair, NJ, and attended St. Lawrence University during the Vietnam War period. At St. Lawrence he met Kathy and they were married in Gunnison Chapel the day after Jon graduated in 1971. After a teaching stint, graduate school at Utah State University, and searching for employment in a tight job market, the Montans settled in Pierrepont in 1977. Jon worked as a planner for over three decades at the SLC Planning Office, retiring from that position at the end of June 2012. Kathy and Jon joined the church in 1983. Jon currently serves as President of the Church Council. During 2016-2017, he served as Chairman of the Ministerial Search Committee; he has also served on the Buildings and Grounds Committee, the Worship Committee, and the Environmental Action committee. Kathy and Jon have one son, Christopher, who resides in Massachusetts. Jon’s interests are wide-ranging but often gravitate toward scientific topics. It is fun to learn something new each day. “Let’s have coffee (or some other beverage) and talk.”

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Sarah Bentley-Garfinkel

Vice President

Sarah Bentley-Garfinkel (she/her) has been attending the UU Church of Canton for about twenty years and joined as a member in 2010. She has served on the Nominating, Worship and Religious Education (RE) Committees and was the Assistant Director of RE 2004-2008. Currently she is a Church Council Vice President, RE program volunteer and Potsdam Interfaith Community co-liaison. Sarah works as a Program Coordinator at the Health Initiative, and is a member of Cornell Cooperative Extension of St. Lawrence County’s Board of Directors and GardenShare’s Outreach and Education Committee. She and her partner Ryan live in the town of Canton and have two young adult children, Emma and Caleb.

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Eden Terrell

Secretary

Eden Terrell moved to Canton in January 2017 with her husband Kurt and children Crosby and Harper after a four-year stint in Lake Placid. She currently works at SUNY Canton. Eden has served on the Religious Education team for five years, serves as Co-chair of the Caring Circle, and misses ringing with the handbell choir terribly.

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STEFAN GRIMBERG

Treasurer

Stefan’s family has been attending the UU church since their arrival to the North Country in 1996. For the first several years as a new faculty member at Clarkson Stefan used Sunday mornings to catch up on unfinished work, which led his wife Jan to suggest that he take the blue newcomer cup during social hour whenever he attended Sunday service. Since then Stefan has served on the Investment Committee, the Budget & Finance committee and for the past 20 years on Building and Grounds. He is currently our Church Council Treasurer. Stefan values most the personal connections and the community the church has enabled his family to form, which allowed them to raise three boys and call the North Country home.

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Rebecca Pickens

Trustee

Rebecca Pickens attends the UU Church of Canton with her husband, Dave, and their three sons. She currently serves on the Religious Education Committee and enjoys every chance she gets to help out in the RE classroom. Rebecca is a writer and editor at Brave Writer, and she homeschools her sons. In her free time, she writes fiction and enjoys all things bookish and creative.

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Katie Boczarski

Trustee

Katie lives in Potsdam with her husband Ron, and their three children: Thaddeus, Sofiya, and Evelyn. They joined the UU Church of Canton in 2012 to have a community to raise their children in. Katie has served on the Communications Committee where she puts her journalism degree to work by publicizing the work of the church to the greater North Country community. She also volunteers in the nursery and loves getting to watch our littlest UU’s grow and learn. Outside of church, she enjoys reading, writing, crocheting, and spending as much time around trees as she can.

Lorraine Olendzenski

Trustee

Lorraine and her husband Tim Nolan came to the UU Church of Canton to provide religious education and a spiritual home for their two children. She has been a member and chair of the Library Committee and has participated in RE as a teacher and assistant, most recently working with the Coming of Age group (‘22-‘23). Lorraine grew up in Massachusetts and has lived in Boston and small towns from Western MA to Cape Cod. After 19 years in the North Country, she now considers Canton to be home. A professor in the Biology Department at St. Lawrence University, she is a microbial biologist who finds joy in the web of life.

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Wil Rivers

Trustee

Wil grew up in Indiana and went to school in Iowa and Tennessee where he studied biology, geology, and ecology. Wil and his wife, Rebecca, attended the Tennessee Valley UU Church in Knoxville, TN, were married by their minister, and joined our church as soon as they arrived in Canton in 1999 to work at St. Lawrence University. Both Wil and Rebecca were involved in religious education for several years while their children, Sarah and Aryn, were in the RE program. Wil has served as the chair of the Religious Education Committee for the past several years and also served on the last DRE search committee and Assistant DRE search committee. Wil has taught in the Spirit Play classroom in RE and also served as a canvasser. Wil currently teaches in the Science Department at SUNY Canton and enjoys reading, gardening, woodworking, and spending time with his family, three cats, one dog, and 15 chickens.

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Ron Tavernier

Trustee

Ron was born and raised in Malone and attended Paul Smiths College, where he met his wife, Sharon. They moved to Fairbanks, Alaska, to continue their education, where Ron received bachelor's degrees in Wildlife Biology and Journalism and ultimately a doctorate in Neuroscience. After the birth of their two children, Elyse and Isaac, they moved closer to home and in 2007 when Ron accepted a job at SUNY Canton where he has been teaching ever since. Raised Roman Catholic (Ron) and Jewish (Sharon), they "religion shopped" with their core values in mind, looking for a place that felt like home. They found the UU Church in Canton eight or nine years ago and in that time, Ron has served on the Welcoming and Religious Education Committees while teaching in both Spirit Play and Maker Space.

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Jim Williams

Trustee

Jim has been attending the UU Church for about 20 years. He has worked for the Cerebral Palsy Association of the North Country for 24 years, providing a variety of services to individuals with developmental disabilities and their families. He and his wife Donna Dilworth raised their two daughters in Colton and they have now moved on to other parts of the country. Jim is inspired by the philosophy of the Unitarian Universalist Church and the dedication of members of our congregation towards social justice issues. He has been involved in the Religious Education program over the years and is currently one of the facilitators for the Our Whole Lives program.