The author of six nonfiction books (four about Route 66, two are collaborations with co-author Joe Sonderman), Cheryl is currently finishing a book, tentatively slated for release in 2024, about women’s lives and work on historic Route 66 and the legacy that they left. For seven years, she has been collecting stories about the women who lived and worked along the Mother Road. Featuring them, she has presented programs at venues in Illinois, Missouri, Texas, and New York. Stories from her research have also evolved into magazine articles, including a series entitled “Memorable Women of Route 66” in the now-defunct Route 66 Magazine. A prized accomplishment is the production of her stage play Aprons Away: Women’s Work on the Mother Road. Written as a series of monologues performed by characters from the Route 66 era, the play premiered as a one-act at Blackburn College in Carlinville in 2018 and was produced in a full two-act version with original music by Jett at the Eagle Performing Arts Center in Pontiac, Illinois, in 2019.

Cheryl counts over 200 published historical articles and currently writes for several publications, including the popular national magazine ROUTE, and pens a monthly column (now in its 11th year) in the Prairie Land Buzz, a regional Illinois publication.

Cheryl holds a graduate degree in history from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and has done additional post-graduate study in arts management and screenwriting. She established the Miles of Possibility Route 66 Conference in 2015 with its first event held at the Wildey Theatre in Edwardsville; it is now an annual Illinois event.

Cheryl is a member of the Extraordinary Women Initiative’s Illinois Task Force. She has previously served on the board of the Illinois Route 66 Scenic Byway, was president of Illinois Route 66 Blue Carpet Corridor, and was a founding member of the Illinois Chapter of the Trail of Tears Association.

She has lived in seven Illinois cities, and in non-COVID times, she spends part of each year in Florida and New Mexico, where her adult children live.

When not researching or writing, she enjoys genealogy, travel, and landscape photography.