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Scott is a Major Gift Officer for the University of Illinois Extension at the Urbana-Champaign Campus. He has been married to his wife Sandy for 27 years. She is a pediatric nurse at Carle, and they share two children and a bonus daughter. His son Ian resides in San Antonio, Texas with his wife Natalie aka bonus daughter. His Daughter Grace just finished her LPN and will bridge to the RN program at Parkland College in Champaign. In 2023 Scott and his wife Sandy welcomed their first Grandchild Isaac. In his spare time. Scott coaches and mentors’ various athletes including military personnel.  Scott currently serves as a committee member for the Champaign Urbana Walk and his family has had a team for four years. 

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The journey for the Burnsmier family started back in 2008. Scott states, “All I could think about was my mother, Dorothy Key, who was my hero and a strong-willed person, who raised three kids on her own, is in for the fight of her life. I immediately started finding out what I could when we started the journey in 2008. Alzheimer’s, what is it? What will happen to our mother? We took the dreaded journey of getting answers from the Neurologist. He went through tons of tests and explained what was ahead.” 

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Scott shares, as the disease progressed, the first few years were normal. However, year four was met with challenges as mom found a painful lump in her breast that was stage one breast cancer. We immediately scheduled not only her Neurology appointments, but we also had Oncology and radiation treatments as well. During this challenging time with mom, we were dealt with the devastating news that my father-in-law Dean was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and his journey would last for the next six years until he passed in 2018, just 63 days after mom.  The mantra for us was always to stay positive and support our parents. In life you have a choice, get bitter or get better. We choose better to reflect the spirit of our parents. That is why I joined the Board to advocate and better the next family in the fight against Alzheimer’s.