Saturday Presenters
Troy and Deedra Russell
Saturday Morning
As a child in an Air Force family, Troy Russell grew up in Dayton, Ohio; Colorado Springs, Colorado; Mount Vernon, Virginia; and Mesa, Arizona. He played defensive back in varsity football in high school. He served a full-time mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Australia Perth Mission. Troy attended Ricks College (now BYU–Idaho), and Weber State University in Ogden, Utah where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Child and Family Studies.
Deedra Valentine was born in Layton, Utah into a loving family of ten children. She was raised on a small family farm and her growing up years included chores of planting, weeding, harvesting, and moving water pipes. Deedra has always been athletic and played multiple sports growing up. She played women’s varsity basketball, soccer, and ran track all three years at Northridge High School. After high school, she joined the Women’s Varsity soccer team at Weber State University. Deedra has always been high energy and makes friends easily.
Troy and Deedra met while both attending Weber State University. They were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple in 1996. Troy earned a Doctor of Chiropractic degree from The University of Western States in Portland, Oregon in 2002. Troy and Deedra moved to Henderson, Nevada in 2002 and have lived there ever since. Troy currently is co-director of Advanced Spine and Rehabilitation in Las Vegas.
Troy and Deedra are the parents of five beautiful children and a new daughter-in-law and adorable baby granddaughter. Their son, Austen, passed away in 2015 at the age of nine.
Troy has been a champion of the Restoration his entire life. He particularly treasures The Book of Mormon. He currently serves as a member of the stake high council of the McCullough Hills Stake in Henderson, Nevada.
Deedra’s church callings have included Gospel Doctrine teacher, ward organist, as well as various callings in the Primary and Young Women’s programs. She considers her family and friends to be her greatest joy and loves spending time in their company.
Tamara McFadden
Saturday Afternoon
Tamara McFadden calls Utah home now, but she’s lived all over the United States and in Australia. She has six biological children, three bonus children, one amazing husband, and five grandchildren. She recently headed back to BYU to finish a degree in family studies she started 30 years ago.
Like many people do, Tamara has experienced difficult challenges, but no trial has ever been more difficult than the loss of her youngest son, Walker, who passed away suddenly in a construction accident at the age of 16. Through that experience, she gained a new knowledge and understanding of Jesus Christ. She testifies that He really is the Master Healer and the Prince of Peace.
Ken Alford
Ken Alford is a professor of Church History at Brigham Young University and a retired U.S. Army Colonel. Ken served in numerous assignments during almost 30 years on active duty in the Army—including working at the Pentagon, supporting Pershing nuclear missile units in West Germany, managing over $5 billion in government computer contracts, and serving as a professor at the U.S. Military Academy and the National Defense University. Ken's son-in-law died of a rare form of leukemia in 2021, his sweet wife of 43 years died in 2022 after valiantly battling cancer for twelve-and-a-half years, and his father died in 2023. Ken and his late wife. Sherilee, have four wonderful children and twenty amazing grandchildren.
Matthew Anderson
Matthew Anderson is an Associate Teaching Professor in the College of Nursing at BYU. He and his wife are the parents of seven children. Professionally, he has worked in critical care, emergency care, and with patients with congenital heart disease. At age 17, his 25-year-old brother drowned in a slot canyon. In 2023, his 22-month-old son drowned. Through these painful experiences, he has come to experience the incredible ability of Jesus Christ to heal us in our grief.
Kori Andrews
Kori Andrews is one of the hosts of the Grief and Belief podcast, a seminary and institute teacher, a cofounder of Hi 5 Live Tours, and president of the nonprofit Hi 5 Humanitarian. He has a master's degree in family and human development from Arizona State University.
He and his wife, Katie, are the parents of 6 beautiful children (5 girls and 1 boy). Their youngest daughter, Kamryn, was born premature and passed away after 38 days.
Kathryn Cunningham
When Kathryn Cunningham moved to Tooele County in 2021 with her husband and four children, she couldn’t have imagined that this would be the place where she would bury her son. At eight years old, Dallin died after falling off a slide at school during a very cold winter when the ground was frozen solid. Since then, Kathryn and her family have sought to use the Savior’s teachings and example to draw upon heavenly power and navigate the ever-changing landscape of grief and mourning. Every season brings new challenges they never expected, and the gospel of Jesus Christ provides the lessons and tools to lift, support, and guide them in all their needs.
Angie Dean
Angie Dean is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with a Master of Social Work from the University of Utah and an undergraduate degree from Utah Valley University. Her clinical background includes inpatient behavioral health, crisis work, and substance use counseling, supporting individuals and families navigating mental health challenges, trauma, and loss. Her work is shaped by lived experiences with grief, including personal and family losses that required difficult decisions and revealed the complex, compounding effects grief can have within families and relationships. Angie currently works as a therapist in connection with Blomquist Hale’s Employee Assistance Program, helping families navigate grief, loss, and challenging life circumstances. She uses gentle humor and candid conversation to address the complex nature of human emotions. She is a wife, mother of four adult children, and grandmother to one with another expected in July. She is also the primary support for her aging father with very specific health needs. She has found this experience to be deeply fulfilling and connecting.
Steve Eastmond
Steve Eastmond, LCSW, has been practicing as a therapist for over 26 years. Steve worked at the Utah State Hospital on the forensic unit and worked in the hospice field for 10 years, counseling patients who had terminal illnesses, as well as their family members, and helping them to cope with the complications and challenges of grief long after their loved one passes on. He is the owner of Family Transitions Counseling in Lehi, Utah. Since 2012, Steve has worked in his private practice full-time with individuals struggling with a wide assortment of family and marital challenges, including anxiety, depression, grief and loss, and more. He has spoken at BYU Education Week for over 14 years, and he has spoken at many Latter-day Saint Singles and Mid-Singles Events, BYU Women’s Conference, and many wards and stakes throughout the Utah and Salt Lake valleys.
Tiffany Hebb
Tiffany Hebb is a mother of six, with five children here on earth and one son, Ollie (2 years), who passed away in 2012 following a drowning accident while living in Oregon. His loss became the spark for Tiffany’s journey toward holistic healing and ultimately shaped her purpose in supporting others through their own grief. After his passing, she became certified in yoga and meditation as a way to navigate deep sorrow in her own life, later discovering the power these tools held to help others.
Since losing Ollie, Tiffany has clung to Jesus Christ, and her testimony has deepened in ways she never expected. The peace she has felt through Him has carried her through her darkest moments, and she hopes every grieving heart can experience that same sustaining peace. She is the author of Holistic Grieving, a book that explores grief through a whole-person lens—mind, body, and spirit—and offers practical tools for healing.
Tanya Kimball
Tanya Kimball is an Arizona resident whose life was changed after losing her 17-year-old son, Braden, to suicide in December 2024. In the wake of that loss, Tanya and her husband, Drew, began speaking out in their community about mental health—especially to teens—sharing the message that help is available and YOU MATTER. Just 11 months later, tragedy struck again when Drew and their youngest son, Grahm, were killed in a fatal plane accident while headed to Utah. Within one year, Tanya's family of six became divided, with three on earth and three on the other side of the veil Shaped by profound loss, love, faith, and resilience, Tanya now inspired others to slow down, remember their divine worth, and find meaning in life's everyday moments.
Patti Merrill
Patti Merrill knows grief not as a concept but as a lived companion. Her life has been shaped by the death of her daughter, years of holding hope and heartbreak within a marriage affected by long-term illness, the death of her husband, and the tender complexities of navigating faith and grief within family relationships. Patti is the founder of The Waiting Place, a nonprofit created to offer refuge for people whose grief doesn't fit neat categories or timelines. She speaks with honesty, humility, and deep compassion, creating space for conversations many people carry silently about loss, identity, faith, and what it means to keep going without leaving oneself behind.
David Mickelson
David Mickelson is one of the host of the Grief and Belief podcast and a lifelong learner with a love for history, faith, and people. He and his wife, Alena, are the parents of four children. Their oldest daughter, Ava, passed away just over three years ago at age 18 after a very short and courageous battle with leukemia—a loss that has profoundly shaped David's faith, family life, and approach to grief and hope.
Gina and Ellie Oliverson
Gina is a mother of three and the founder of StayMENtallyStrong, a nonprofit organization she created after the suicide of her husband in February 2024. In the wake of devastating loss, Gina chose to anchor herself in faith—believing that even in unimaginable sorrow, God is near and purpose can still be born. What began as heartbreak has grown into a mission to speak hope into silent suffering, particularly for men and professionals who may feel they must carry their burdens alone.
Gina is also an entrepreneur and community builder. She co-owns The Firm Pilates studio and leads women’s retreats to Italy, where she teaches her “Make Life Sweet” philosophy—the belief that joy is not naïve, even after loss, but an act of courage and faith. In her darkest season, she found healing in movement, mountains, and long conversations with her daughter—walking trails, running marathons and half marathons together, and learning that grief, like endurance, is taken one step at a time.
Ellie is a psychology major at Brigham Young University and the founder of the Her Horizon podcast, a platform dedicated to helping young women expand their faith, vision, and emotional resilience. After losing her father to suicide, Ellie has wrestled deeply with questions about God, pain, and eternal families—and has come to know that faith does not remove grief, but it does steady us inside it.
This April, Ellie will be married to the love of her life—a sacred milestone that carries both joy and ache. Her wedding is a tender reminder that love continues, that families are eternal, and that even after profound loss, God still writes beautiful chapters. In the space where a father’s presence will be deeply missed, there is also the quiet assurance that heaven is not far.
Marie Ricks
Marie Ricks is a fellow griever who has lost a son to leukemia, her mother to a brain tumor, and her father to multiple sclerosis, as well as cousins and good friends to illnesses, cancer, and tragedy. She is a seasoned Grief and Loss Specialist and is certified as a Compassion Bereavement Care Provider, specifically to meet the needs of those suffering traumatic grief and loss. She is currently serving an 18-month full-time mission in the Utah, Salt Lake City Headquarters Mission, where she remotely counsels young missionaries serving in the Central America, Argentina, and Uruguay mission areas.
Jordan Robertson
Jordan lost her husband, Jake, in 2016 at the age of 35. At the time, their children were 10, 8, 6, and 2 years old, and she was desperate for the resources to help her little ones through this painful grieving experience. Her need led her to pursue working with a professor at BYU who specialized in literature for young children, and this work eventually led Jordan back to school to get a PhD in counseling psychology. She will graduate in April of 2027. Jordan loves children's literature and has a wealth of knowledge about picture books for grieving children especially.
Mitch Simkins
Mitch Simkins has grieved with and walked alongside many women over the last 20 years as they’ve struggled through the loss of their spouses. These experiences, along with his compassion for the resulting struggle in dealing with finances alone, fuel his desire to serve widows. His mission is to offer practical guidance and genuine hope for anyone at the junction of grief and money. He hosts a podcast called Wins for Widows, where he welcomes like-minded professionals across the globe who are committed to the same cause: helping others find answers to the question, “What now?” Mitch is real about what fears and confusion widows face during this tender time. Shaped by experience and empathy, his stories, both his own and those of others, are meant to help women find clarity, hope, resilience, and peace.