If you ever attended the SaddleBrooke Treats and Talents event or the Oracle Schools Foundation Gala then you would be familiar with the name of Ann Vernon. Her name is synonymous with fund-raising for important causes in our community, and her name is synonymous with a creative and high energy persona that we all would like to emulate–or clone!
Ann was born in Sac City, Iowa. Her mother was an elementary school teacher and her father, an Air Force Veteran, owned his own finance business.
From an early age Ann knew that she wanted to be a teacher; she routinely held “classes” in her basement with her sister and a friend. Ann’s mother was a role model for her—indeed, also for her sister, a teacher, and her brother, a principal. And the apples have not fallen far from the tree, as two of her nieces are teachers (and also their spouses). Ann’s husband is a retired university professor and their son is a teacher. In addition, their granddaughter has declared elementary education as her major!
Ann obtained her bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Iowa; initially she thought she would obtain her master’s in Library Science. But the high school counselor at her first teaching assignment was not too professional and the students started bringing their issues to her. An invitation to sit in on a graduate school class in counseling led her to changing her major to Counseling. She subsequently earned her M.A. in K-12 School Counseling, followed by her Ph.D. in Counseling and Human Development.
Her counseling career included teaching and coordinating school and mental health counseling programs, in addition to having a successful private practice specializing in children, adolescents and their parents. Ann also carried out regional, national and international training for mental health practitioners on a variety of topics.
She wrote and/or edited twenty-three books, including her own authored textbooks, Counseling Children and Adolescents and What Works When with Children and Adolescents.
She met her husband, Nile, while taking some Spanish classes he was teaching. He eventually moved to Columbia to teach but they reconnected years later and they married in 1970. They moved to SaddleBrooke in 2006.
In 2007, while teaching in Romania, she received a message from their SaddleBrooke Unit Rep asking for ideas to raise money for kids at Christmas. Ann posited the idea of a Treats and Talents auction, which she chaired for eight years. Then she was asked to assume that position for the Oracle Schools Foundation Gala, which she did for seven years. The mission of the Gala is to raise funds for various educational programs at the Mountain Vista PreK-8 school in Oracle, with the primary focus being to help fund preschool.
Regarding her successes of the Oracle Schools Foundation Galas Ann says that she firmly believes that “education is the gift that just keeps on giving.” Luckily, Ann will continue to be involved in planning future Gala events for the Oracle Schools Foundation, via Zoom.
Ann and Nile moved from SaddleBrooke this past spring to live near their son and family in Minneapolis. They will spend summers at their lake home near Hayward, Wisconsin and will continue to explore the world.
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