Witherspoon annual meeting
confirms merger,
names new officers
[8-18-01]
This is a very late report from June's General
Assembly, with apologies from your WebWeaver. But just so you don't
miss what happened at our Annual Meeting:
Witherspoon's annual meeting, held right
after our Awards Luncheon on Sunday, June 10 at General Assembly, took
one major action in confirming the merger
between Witherspoon and Semper Reformanda.
Reflecting that significant step, the group
elected a slate of officers including three former leaders of Semper
Reformanda. President Jane Hanna expressed the group's gratitude to
retiring officers Harold Barton (Treasurer), Chris Iosso (Issues
Analyst), Brian Christoffersen, Barbara Gaddis, and Michael Livingston
(all At-Large members), and James Baker (Vice President), for the energy
and leadership they have given during their terms of service.
Gene TeSelle will become the Issues Analyst, and
Trina Zelle will serve as Membership Coordinator, while Kent
Winters-Hazelton will become a Member at Large.
The new officers will actually assume their new
roles during with our fall Executive Committee meeting, on September
20-23, in Albuquerque.
We're happy to introduce the new officers
here:
Jill Acree,
who lives in Ada, OK, is currently serving as a circuit preacher in
small churches in rural Oklahoma, primarily native American, that lack
pastoral leadership. She understands her call in ministry to be with
poor and marginalized persons in rural Oklahoma. She will become the new
Sectretary-Communicator for Witherspoon.
Richard Hong,
elected as Treasurer, is an elder and past moderator of Palisades
Presbytery. He is now enrolled as an Inquirer, and is beginning his
theological studies at Union Theological Seminary in New York. He holds
a B.A. in Chemistry from Princeton University. He lives in Kinnelon, NJ.
José Olagues
became involved in our denomination in the '70s as a Sunday School
teacher. He was a GA commissioner in 1990, and is presently serving on a
GA committee. After early retirement from the corporate world, he
attended seminary and was ordained to the ministry of Word &
Sacrament in 1995. Today, he serves the denomination in the Southwest,
in the state of Arizona. He has been on the board of Semper
Reformanda.
Barbara Kellam Scott
was the Moderator of Semper Reformanda at the time of merger with the
Witherspoon Society, and is now an at-large member of the Witherspoon
board. She has been active in many Presbyterian peace and justice
concerns for some two decades. She is a professional writer, currently
working on "4 or 5 novels plus a nonfiction work on women's stories
from the Bible." An elder, she is a member of the Presbyterian
Church at Franklin Lakes, New Jersey.
Ken Smith,
elected as Vice President, is an elder at Southfield Presbyterian Church
in Southfield, MI, a suburb of Detroit. He became an activist during the
Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Since taking early retirement in
1991, he has worked on health care reform with the Presbyterian Health
Network, served on the Presbytery of Detroit Anti-Racism Team, and was
the Moderator of Semper Reformanda from 1997 to 2000.
