wfn.org | Nashvillian receives Racial Ethnic Minority Fellowship

["NewsDesk" <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

May 19, 2003 News media contact: Linda Green7(615)742-54707Nashville, Tenn.  
  10-30-31-71BP{287}

NOTE: A photograph is available.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) - United Methodist Communications has selected Royya
L. James, a recent graduate of Middle Tennessee State University, as the
2003-2004 recipient of the Judith L. Weidman Racial Ethnic Minority
Fellowship. 

James is the sixth recipient of the fellowship, which provides a year of
working with an experienced director of communications in one of the United
Methodist Church's annual (regional) conferences.

She will work in the Wyoming Annual Conference from July 1 through June 30.
Don Perry, the director of communications, will be her mentor. The
conference, which covers parts of New York and Pennsylvania, has offices in
Endicott, N.Y.

UMCom developed the fellowship in 1998 to encourage people of ethnic minority
background to consider religion communications as a career. Among the 64
annual conferences in the United States, there are fewer than 10 conference
communicators of ethnic minority heritage in leadership positions. The
fellowship carries the name of the late Judith L. Weidman, who encouraged its
development during her tenure as UMCom's top staff executive.

"I am very excited about beginning the REM Fellowship and all the new
opportunities that will follow," James said.

An Antioch, Tenn., resident and former UMCom summer intern, James graduated
from Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro in 2002, having earned
a bachelor's degree in communications with a public relations concentration.
She is a lifelong member of Mount Pisgah United Methodist Church and has
served as college representative, usher and member of the youth group and
Black Methodists for Church Renewal. She is currently a substitute teacher in
the Nashville public school system. 

While working as a UMCom intern, James said, she recognized that the REM
Fellowship would allow her another opportunity to learn about the roles of
conference communications in the mission of the church as well as prepare her
to be an effective conference communicator.  

She became passionate about religion communications, she said. "Secular
reporters work passionately to tell their stories. I feel we need the same
type of passion for telling the story of Jesus! It is possible that someone
could be saved if the word of God dominated the media for a full week."

An eight-person selection committee chose three finalists, who were
interviewed May 6 in Nashville.

David Malloy, the 2002-03 recipient, will complete his fellowship year July
31. Tom Slack, director of communications for the West Ohio Annual
Conference, was his primary mentor.

Larry Hygh Jr. was the first recipient and spent a year working in the New
England Conference. He is now director of communications in the
California-Pacific Annual Conference. Eunice Dharmaratnam, the second
recipient, enrolled in graduate school after her fellowship year in the
Indiana Area communications office. Nicole Benson, the third recipient,
became communications coordinator and editor in the Texas Conference, after
spending her fellowship year in the Southwest Texas Conference. Ciona Rouse,
the fourth recipient, is communications coordinator for the denomination's
Shared Mission Focus on Young People, and served her fellowship year in the
Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference. 

Information about the REM Fellowship and other scholarship opportunities is
available at www.crt.umc.org or by calling Amelia Tucker-Shaw at (888)
278-4862.

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