Guiding the Mission. Advancing the Vision.

Kimberly Begg is president of the Clare Boothe Luce Center for Conservative Women. An attorney with more than 25 years of experience strengthening conservative causes, her long history with the Luce Center began in the 1990s when she was a student at Rutgers University. In 1997, she attended the Luce Center’s College Women’s Luncheon in Washington, DC and hosted a Luce campus lecture the following year. She has been a regular speaker for the Luce Center since the 2000s and has served on the Center’s board of advisors and board of directors.

She is the author of Unbreakable: Saints Who Inspired Saints to Moral Courage (TAN Books) and co-author with Mike Ortner of Catholic School Playbook (Word on Fire).

She has served as vice president and general counsel of Young America’s Foundation and director of programs and general counsel of the Ortner Family Foundation.

She helped found Young America’s Foundation’s Be Not Afraid seminar (originally, the Standing Up for Faith and Freedom seminar), an annual program for students at Catholic schools, in 2015.

From 2021 to 2024, she served as founding editor of Catholic School Playbook, a website documenting the best practices of thriving Catholic schools.
She serves on the board of directors of Young America’s Foundation, the board of overseers of the Dominican House of Studies, and the DC board of regents of Thomas Aquinas College.

She lives in Herndon, Virginia, with her husband, Ian, and their five children.

As a child, Marjory (Marji) Grant Ross dreamed of being one of two things: either the editor of The Wall Street Journal or a Broadway singer. She went on to become the first person outside the Regnery family to ever hold the title of President of Regnery Publishing, initially joining the company as vice president and general manager in 1999. Prior to that, she was a senior group publisher for Phillips International, where she ran several business units, including investment newsletters, business newsletters, and health newsletters. She graduated from Dartmouth College with a BA in English in 1981, and earned her Masters in Journalism from American University.

Under her strong leadership for twelve years, Regnery placed 48 of its books on The New York Times Best-Seller List – an enviable feat in the competitive world of publishing.

Marji was blessed with a few strong female role models in her developmental years – one of them was her first boss, a woman entrepreneur who had started her own public relations firm. She received CBL’s Woman of the Year Award at CPAC in 2005. Marji Ross is a private consultant and the devoted mother of three daughters.

Clare Luce is the granddaughter of Henry Luce, founder of Time, Inc., and the namesake of Clare Boothe Luce with whom she traveled extensively in the latter part of her life. Born and raised on the north shore of Long Island, Clare was educated in New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. She moved to San Francisco in 1981 and worked as a freelance photographer and then as a writer/producer for The Epicurean Lifestyle, a local television show that featured the finest restaurants and wineries in the Bay Area.

In 1986, Clare met Cliff Abbey. They traveled Europe, married in 1988 and started San Francisco 415 Co., designing and manufacturing sportswear under the labels Agnelli, Sutter’s and Ivy Brown. Along the way, their dream of owning a vineyard in the Napa Valley came to fruition in 1991 when they bought a property with an eight-acre hillside vineyard near St Helena. After ten years of replanting and commuting on weekends, Clare and Cliff sold their company and moved to St Helena to take on the viticulture venture full time. Their goal was to make a world class Cabernet Sauvignon from their own fruit. Tying her past to the present, the emblem on the wine label pays homage to the Presidential Medal of Freedom bestowed upon Clare Boothe Luce by President Reagan in 1983. In 2005, Cliff was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers, which precipitated the eventual sale of the wine label and vineyard in 2008. He passed away in 2012.

Clare’s philanthropic interests include the San Francisco Symphony, the Ronald McDonald House, the Center for the Pacific Rim at the University of San Francisco, the Fire Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the St Helena Hospital Foundation.

Camille Hart is an experienced event planner and writer with over 15 years of work in high profile environments, including the White House, the Pentagon, and in non-profit organizations. Camille began her career in 2002 as an intern assisting the staff of the White House Travel Office with the logistics of travel arrangements for the President of the United States, his staff and the White House Press Corps. She subsequently worked as Media Coordinator at the Pentagon in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, serving under both Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary Robert Gates. As Public Affairs Specialist, Camille planned strategic outreach events for the more than 250 military charities, including key events at the Pentagon and White House.

In 2007, Camille brought her organizational and writing skills to the non-profit world. She served as Events Director at the Clare Boothe Luce Center for Conservative Women for thirteen years. In this capacity, she oversaw all logistics of the events and conferences of the organization, and authored and produced written materials, newsletters, and reports for the Center.

Camille is a graduate of Texas Christian University and lives in Texas with her husband and their two young children.

Kate Obenshain Keeler, author of Divider in Chief: The Fraud of Hope and Change, is a popular speaker and commentator on national television and radio shows. Kate has spent her career championing expanded liberty in America, and impressing upon young people an understanding of the blessings of freedom.

Formerly a vice president of Young America’s Foundation, she has been speaking on college campuses for 30 years, has appeared on Fox News, CNBC, and MSNBC, has written for numerous publications and been on hundreds of radio shows. Kate served as chairman of the Virginia GOP from 2003 to 2006, when she led the fight against tax increases and the expanding role of government; as advisor to former Governor George Allen, and as his Senate chief of staff; and as vice chairman of the Virginia State Council for Higher Education.

In 2004, she founded the Jennifer Byler Institute, a leadership training program for women in Virginia. She is currently a board member of Young America’s Foundation–the organization that owns President Reagan’s Ranch–and the Clare Boothe Luce Center for Conservative Women, and serves on the advisory boards of the McShin Foundation and the Virginia Conservative Women Coalition. She has served on the NRA’s National School Shield Advisory Board and the Steamship Institute’s Advisory Board.

Kate is a regular speaker for gatherings—civic, corporate, educational, and religious—all across the country, and is known for her inspirational style. Her most treasured role, however, is that of mother to six grown children. Currently, she resides in Cape Charles, Virginia with her husband.

Ursula Meese has a long and distinguished history of professional and humanitarian service to women, children, military service personnel, and the disabled.
A graduate of University of the Pacific and Radcliffe-Harvard Program in Business Administration, Ursula began her career in California as a Deputy Probation Officer. She subsequently served as a member of the San Diego County Grand Jury and as Director of the William Moss Institute, a public policy institute affiliated with American University. Until her retirement, Ursula worked for many years as Development Consultant to the Multiple Sclerosis Society’s Operation Job Match, a training and job placement service for the handicapped in Washington DC.

Mrs. Meese has also served in several advisory and community volunteer capacities. She was a member of the Attorney General’s Task Force on Family Violence at the U.S. Department of Justice during the Reagan Administration. She worked with Jeane Kirkpatrick on the U.S. Delegation to Central Africa’s women in development programs. She has also served on the Board of Trustees for the Multiple Sclerosis Society National Capital Chapter, American University, Marymount University, and the World USO. She has been honored with the San Francisco USO’s Woman of the Year award and the San Diego USO’s Leadership Award, the Multiple Sclerosis Society National Capital Chapter’s Hope Chest Award for Humanitarian Service and the Leadership Award, and Marymount University’s Mother Phelan Award for Humanitarian Service.

A mother of three, Mrs. Meese lives with her husband in Virginia and continues to be actively involved. In addition to this Institute, she serves on the Boards of the Space Shuttle Children Fund and the Trinity Forum Academy in St. Michaels, Maryland. At both our Conservative Women’s Network and Western Women’s Summit, Mrs. Meese shared memories of her friendship with Clare Boothe Luce, offering unique insight into the life of the woman for whom this Institute is named.

Darla grew up in Northeast Ohio and met Elliott Partridge (“Doc”) at Drake University Hospital. She was a nurse in training and he was working his way through Drake University as a laboratory technician at the hospital. They married in June of 1960. Darla finished nursing training at Iowa Methodist Hospital receiving a special award for pediatric education. She worked as a nurse while Doc worked his way through the University of Iowa medical school.

In 1966, Doc volunteered for the Air Force and moved the family to Langley, Virginia where he served his country as an Air Force doctor. In 1968 Darla, Doc and the children moved back to the Midwest — Eldorado, Illinois — a place they have called home for the last 30 years. Darla is a history teacher at Equality Christian Center School. She plans to continue to teach so long as she feels love for the children and is physically able to help.

The Partridges regularly make trips to Mexico to treat the inhabitants of Cardboard City — a community near the Texas border where many Mexicans live in cardboard boxes to be near factory jobs. While there, as doctor and nurse, the Partridges donate medical treatment to as many Mexican families as possible, helped by what Darla says is God’s gift to Doc of “a nose for quick diagnosis.”

Darla believes the state of women is in shambles today. “Women have been deceived, duped, robbed, and cheated by some false sense of freedom. My role models in life have been my mother and my many friends who have lived good lives, handled difficult situations, and stayed faithful to their husbands. Those are models for life.” Though she wasn’t from a church family, she was saved at 29 years old and believes that her faith in Christ has made a great deal of difference in her life, holding her home together and allowing for the fullness of life. Darla and Doc live in Illinois. They have six children.