Trustee – Bethany Behrhorst Craney
Email: trustees@edwardsvilletownship.com
Bethany Behrhorst Craney, PhD, MPA, MA, is a dedicated public administrator and communications professional with nearly three decades of experience in local government, public relations, marketing and communications and administration. She currently serves as a trustee on the Edwardsville Township Board in Madison County, Illinois (term through 2029). Her career has included serving as the Township Administrator of Edwardsville Township from 2018-2021, and as a member of the planning commissions of the Village of Hamel and the City of Troy. She also served two terms on the Hamel Board of Trustees.
Her employment tenure at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) included nearly a decade in Marketing and Communications and three years teaching in the Master in Public Administration and Policy Analysis program. She has expertise in communications, grant writing, fundraising, human resources and administrative leadership. Her path has led her to a career in strategic communications in IT at Washington University in St. Louis, where she has been since 2022.
A former print journalist with nearly a decade of experience with newspapers – The Telegraph in Alton and The Dispatch and the Rock Island Argus in Moline, Illinois – Bethany earned a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communications (1997) and a Master of Public Administration (2004), both from SIUE. She graduated from the University of Missouri-St. Louis with a master’s in 2018 and her PhD in political science in 2023. Her dissertation, titled Restricted Powers, Special-Purpose Districts, and Path Dependence: Economic Graveyards in Downstate Illinois, focused on special purpose districts and property taxes in Illinois. Her background combines practical local government experience with strong academic preparation in public administration and policy.
Bethany lives in Glen Carbon with her husband, Edwardsville attorney James Craney, and family and their three cats.