Mission Statement
Our mission is to raise funds for children's cancer research and special projects for children and their families.
Board of Directors
Over the past 20 years Dianne Troop, born and raised in Houston, has owned and operated her own business. She is experienced in all aspects from bookkeeping to business planning, advertising and event planning. She has worked in the oil and gas industry which offered her the ability to work with high-level executives on top priority projects.
She has been involved with charity work for over 30 years and she remains involved in her community such as ambassador for the League City Chamber of Commerce, member of the Assistance League of the Bay Area and a volunteer for numerous charity associations.
Troop founded the Jeanette Williams Foundation in memory of her mother. This along with her faith and love for children is her driving force to do all she can for children's cancer research.
Bette Burton is a native Houstonian. She enjoys traveling and volunteering. She is now retired and living in Fulshear, TX. Bette has been married for 22 years. Her volunteer work includes serving on the board of Cape Fear Valley Medical Center in Fayetteville, NC for six years as treasurer and social chair.
Burton is a past board member of LV Women's Club in Lago Vista, TX serving nine years as social, publicity, membership chairs and as secretary. She is currently serving as program chair for the Weston Lakes Women's Association board.
Mary Ellen Arledge worked in the title industry for over 20 years and retired as Vice President of sales from Chicago Title, Houston, Texas. Mary Ellen was closely associated with several charities and administered annual funding while encouraging employees for volunteer services. One of the most rewarding efforts was planning and funding vacations for cancer survivors and their families.
Mary Ellen is a native Houstonian and relocated to League City, Texas, in 2007. Community and charity involvement is a continued commitment volunteering for the following organizations, Texas Sentinels of Freedom, Beach family fundraiser, League City Proud working with chair to plan the first children’s parade in 2009 and the Women Who Wine, a 501c3 organization.
Mary Ellen and her husband, Jon, enjoy living in League City on the water.
Julie Johnson lives in South Shore Harbour with her husband Ron and stepson Matthew. She moved to League City from Dallas where she was an assistant district attorney. While in Dallas, Johnson spent five years working with Habitat for Humanity earning the title of crew chief. She also was a charter member of the Texas Women's Shooting Sports Association, whose primary charity is the Boy Scouts of America.
After moving to League City, Johnson founded Southern Ladies Enjoying Wine (S.L.E.W.). S.L.E.W.'s charitable benefactors include The Pajama Project, M.D. Anderson Hospital, Bay Area Turning Point and The Arts Alliance Center of Clear Lake.
Johnson enjoys spending time with her family and friends, travel and boating.
Robin Stowe is the president of White Knight Technologies, an information technology consulting firm concentrating on document management and Web design and development. She has served as an information technology consultant to major manufacturing sites throughout the world for over 15 years.
Stowe has held several volunteer positions with local community organizations, including membership on the advisory board of The Arts Alliance Center at Clear Lake, chairman of Leadership League City, president of Ballet Ensemble of South Texas, president of the Victory Lakes Intermediate School Choir Booster, and chairman of Bay Area Houston Ballet & Theatre's Sugar Plum Market.
Stowe received her Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. Stowe, her husband and two daughters have been residents of League City, Texas since 1989.
She enjoys spending time with her family, friends, and great danes, as well as travel and reading.
Era Lee Caldwell moved from Southlake, TX (DFW area) to Houston in April 2004 as a result of a job opportunity for her husband, Harry. After living inside Houston's loop for a year, they found themselves drawn to the water and bought their home in Seabrook in 2005. The Caldwell's have four wonderful children and two grandsons.
While living in Southlake, Caldwell was active in many non-profit organizations, including serving as president of the Greater Southlake Women's Society. Because of her participation in so many worthwhile events, she was voted "Woman of the Year" of the Pioneer District of the Texas Federation of Women's Clubs. Caldwell also chaired a successful city-wide effort to hold a local option election in Southlake, which brought new businesses and additional tax revenue into the city. As a result of her effort, the Mayor proclaimed an Era Lee Caldwell Day, and she was named Southlake Chamber's Citizen of the Year.
Since arriving on the scene in the Bay Area, Caldwell still operates Southern Sales, her food service brokerage business she founded in 1982. She has also continued her tradition of community involvement. She has served as secretary and historian of the Bay Area Welcome Neighbor's Club, publicist (and Mardi Gras Queen) of the Mystic Krewe Du Carnaval, and serves on the board of the Waterford Yacht Club. Caldwell also serves as a charter member of S.L.E.W. (Southern Ladies Enjoying Wine).
Era Lee and Harry Caldwell enjoy their children, friends, sailing, playing golf and traveling in their spare time.
 Susan C. Gaskill, M.D. - Honorary Board Member
Dr. Gaskill’s road to becoming a clinical breast radiologist was a gradual process, woven in life experiences, a journey of faith, and her background as a critical care nurse. She was born and raised in Houston and graduated from Bellaire High School in 1975. She attended The University of Texas at Austin and received a Bachelors Degree in Nursing with honors in 1979. After completing nursing school, she worked in intensive care at Hermann Hospital, but it wasn’t long before she made the decision to return to school to become a doctor.
While working as a nurse at Hermann, she completed her premedical requirements at Houston Baptist University and entered The University of Texas Medical School at Houston in 1983. Dr. Gaskill was elected into the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society, and received The Faculty Wives Club Scholarship, and The Janet M. Glascow academic achievement award. She completed a residency in radiology at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas in 1991.
During the final years of her radiology training, she had the opportunity to rotate through the newly founded Susan G. Komen Breast Center where she had the opportunity to interface with women undergoing imaging tests and biopsies to determine if they had breast cancer. It was the fear in their eyes that touched her heart and fueled her passion to help these women through the process. Dr. Gaskill seized the opportunity to implement her nursing skills, listening to them and offering words of encouragement and support. She was distressed when radiologists at the breast center refused to discuss the imaging findings and management options directly with the women at the time of their appointments at the breast center, reinforcing the perception that radiologists just sit in dark rooms reading x-rays. She was thrilled at the opportunity for hands-on, face-to-face contact with patients while applying the diagnostic skills she was learning. These experiences inspired Dr. Gaskill to subspecialize in the new and growing field of breast imaging and led her to become the first fellow in breast imaging at the Susan G. Komen Breast Center at Baylor Dallas in 1992.
After completing her fellowship training, she served as the medical director of the Women’s Diagnostic Center at Medical City Dallas Hospital before returning to the Houston Clear Lake area in 1999, where she practiced through October 2005. Dr. Gaskill has since been serving as the interim Medical Director at the Baylor Women’s Imaging Center in Plano, Texas, for the purpose of learning new technology and its implementation, most importantly, digital mammography and dedicated breast MRI. Her vision is to bring these new tools in the fight against breast cancer to the women of the Bay Area, and to present them in a compassionate, comfortable, personalized atmosphere. She named our new facility Victory Breast Diagnostics and Women’s Imaging, because of its location near the Victory Lakes community in League City, and to serve as a reminder that winning is the only option. The facility will deliver comprehensive expert care with a team approach, which she credits to the lessons she learned as a critical care nurse and mother of four children.
Glenna Hodge is a partner and the director of governmental affairs for the national law firm of Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson, LLP. While she lives and works in Austin, her long-distance involvement in the foundation is an act of love and support for Dianne Troop, its founder.
Sisters by choice, Hodge and Troop share a love of family and a deep desire to stop the suffering of cancer victims and the people who love them.
As publisher and editor-in-chief of Bay Area Houston Magazine, Bonnie Lem drives the company's upward growth and success for both its customers and staff.
Lem believes it was her experience as an HR specialist in overseas employment that gave her the confidence to take the position in management at Bay Area Houston Magazine. She was born in Texas, attended Sam Houston State University and worked in the insurance industry before relocating to Saudi Arabia in 1981. Returning to the Houston area in 1997 and to Bay Area Houston in 1998, Bonnie joined Bay Area Houston Magazine in 1999.
Community involvement is important to Lem; she has served on a number of boards, Armand Bayou Nature Center, Seabrook Merchants and Tourism Association and The Women Who Wine of Texas. She has chaired several major events, Dare to Dine, Spring Fashion Show, Men Who Cook and Off the Cuff & On Your Ear and has volunteered time and effort to many more.
Involvement in the Jeanette Williams Foundation is very important to Lem; she believes in the cause and wants to help find the cure and eradicate the disease.
Contact Information
P.O. Box 281
Kemah, TX 77565
phone: 281.703.7370
email: jwfoundation@yahoo.com
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Era Lee Caldwell - Honorary Board Member 