Board Member Bios

General Officers

Pam White, Chair - Pam is a member of The Ridge Church in Carbondale.  She is a Sunday School teacher with a heart for local and international missions. A retired music teacher, Pam enjoys playing clarinet in her local community college band and orchestra. She is the widowed mother of three adults, and grandmother to four children. She views her main contributions to BFI as communication, addressing policy matters, and prayer.

Brent Cloyd, Vice Chair - Brent is a member of Northside Baptist Church in Fairfield.  He has been a pastor in Illinois for most of his 43-year ministry. For the past six years he has served as the Associational Missions Strategist (AMS) for the Greater Wabash Baptist Association.  He remembers his grandfather saying “If the Lord gives us the land, then we ought to leave it in better shape than it was when we found it”. Brent has held those words in his heart as a guiding principle of stewardship. He hopes his legacy is that he leaves something behind that others can build upon rather than something that others must repair or discard. 

Mihaela Sexton, Secretary - Mihaela is a member of Petersburg First Baptist Church where she serves as a Sunday School teacher and a Ladies Bible Study facilitator. She was born and raised in the mountains of Transylvania, Romania and she was a young adult when the Lord opened her eyes to His wondrous Beauty and Truth to which she could only say Yes! She is currently a staff educator at Springfield Memorial Hospital. She is married to Dean who grew up in central IL and had to cross an ocean to meet her. She would marry him again despite now knowing what it means to have an intercontinental marriage.  Dean and she are the proud parents of two daughters. She serves at BFI in the scholarship committee where she has the privilege to witness the happy intersection of the generosity of faithful donors with the gratitude of faith-filled recipients!  

Committee Chairs

Paul Stanford, Administrative Committee Chair - Paul is a member of Liberty Baptist Church in Pekin, where he serves as a Deacon, Treasurer and Director of the Safety Team. An Army veteran, He has been married to his wife, Kathy, for 49 years, and has two adult sons and six grandsons. He enjoys retirement, spending time reading and puttering in his workshop. He is detail-oriented, bringing the strength of accuracy to his service with BFI.

Administrative Committee - Dan Ahlenius, Scott Andrews, Sheila Brown-Walker, Brent Cloyd, Christine Miller, Pam White

Dennis Fulkerson, Investment Committee Chair - Dennis is a member of Woodland Baptist Church in Peoria where he serves as the Administrative team facilitator and as Chairman of the Finance team.  Dennis is a Certified Financial Planner with a Masters degree in Financial Planning.  I spent a number of years developing a Wealth Management practice for a major accounting firm and their clients in the central Illinois area.  Currently Dennis and his wife, run a Registered Investment Advisory practice.

Investment Committee - Kyle Edmiston, Bruce Guebert, Richard Harris, Thomas Van Horn, Julian Williams, Steve Wright

Bob Carruthers, Scholarship Committee Chair - Bob Carruthers is a retired pastor who served as AMS for Sandy Creek Baptist Association for 24 years. He is currently employed with West Central Mass Transit in Jacksonville. He and his wife Melissa are members of Lincoln Avenue Baptist Church, where she serves as Administrative Assistant.  Bob and Melissa have three grown children and four grandchildren. 

Scholarship Committee - Greg Gomez,  Greg Kyrouac, DeWanna Oliver, Anthony Richardson, Mihaela Sexton, Brenda Spada