Club Officers

The Westernaires volunteer club officers plays a crucial role in guiding and supporting the organization’s mission. These four dedicated individuals offer their time and expertise to oversee governance, ensure financial accountability, lead strategic vision and decision-making for healthy administration for the club today and into the future. Officer roles are elected by the general membership.

Westernaires Chorus of Sun City West is an IRS recognized 509(a)(2) nonprofit organization which is a specialized 501(c)(3) public charity. 509(c)2 are organizations that receive more than one-third of their support from contributions, membership fees and gross receipts from activities related to exempt purposes.

President

Benita Howe

Benita retired as a VP leading geo-located emerging software development technologies, Project Mgmt and Biz Operations teams. She built and restored multiple organizations empowering team work, healthy people behavior, on time delivery and cost effectiveness while delivering news to the web, telco rev share in mobile services, global scale DNS and cloud computing and engineering best practices in Fortune 15 companies. She holds certifications in Organizational Development and Project Management, an undergrad in Accounting and hundreds of hour in coding languages courses.

Benita’s undergrad was facilitated through a Music and Drama scholarship near Los Angeles performing throughout the US. Benita has served as a soloist, ensemble vocal coach, choir director, teen & adult musical director, actor and producer.

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Vice President

Lori Camarata

Lori has orchestrated complex schedules and managed unique personalities while successfully raising seven adults along side her husband Ron.

As the home front Chief Operating Officer, she is skilled at relationship management, intuitive, thoughtful, fair and brings a warm “can do” to serving as VP of Westernaires.

Lori brings several years of theatre, stage, and musical performance experience, enriching every production with her depth of knowledge, creative expression, and confident presence both on and off the stage.

She is active in the Sun City West and Surprise area performing arts.

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Treasurer

Julie McLellan

Julie brings a strong background in finance, budgeting, and organizational support to Westernaires leadership.

After spending several years raising her two sons on a walnut farm in Oregon, she returned to the workforce, earning her MBA from George Fox College and building a career as a Budget Coordinator for multiple newsprint mills and later as a Financial Analyst on high-technology healthcare projects.

A Westernaires member since 2020, Julie is an avid singer who values collaboration and community. She looks forward to supporting the club’s continued growth and evolution while contributing to the positive, people-centered culture that defines Westernaires.

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Secretary & Membership

Patricia Costello

Patricia retired as Assessor for Thurston County in Washington State. As the counties elected official, her office revalued more than 120,000 parcels reflecting approximately $30 billion in assessed value.

As a leader, Patricia focused on bring efficiency to the Assessors office processes and simplified, fair assessments.

Prior to serving as Thurston Co Assessor, Patricia held leadership roles in the initial founded CA Technologies in both the US and France.

Patricia previously served as Westernaires Publicity chair for the 2024 season.

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Committees

The Westernaires volunteer committee chairs are passionate leaders who guide specific areas of the organization with the support and guidance of the Elected Officers, in accordance with the Bylaws and Operating Procedures. Chairs / Leads are appointed by the President and ratified by the Board.

As we have brought new automated systems online, several administrative responsibilities have been streamlined, allowing some roles to be lightened and, in some cases, combined. This has helped us work more efficiently while keeping the focus on collaboration and impact.

Committee chairs design, administer, and coordinate efforts within their areas, ensuring everything runs smoothly. Chair roles are advisory to the Board and non-voting per the Bylaws. Think of them as the ones who turn ideas into action—working alongside others to bring plans to life and make a meaningful difference. Their dedication and leadership are essential to keeping Westernaires moving forward and thriving.

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