Presbyterian News Service
06269 May 17, 2006
Notes about people by Jerry L. Van Marter
Former General Assembly moderator Susan R. Andrews has been chosen by a search committee to be the next executive presbyter for Hudson River Presbytery. The presbytery will vote on her nomination May 20.
Andrews, 57, who was moderator of the 215th General Assembly (2003), begins her new work in August. Since 1989 she has been pastor of Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church in Bethesda, MD. Hudson River Presbytery includes 92 congregations in eight counties north of New York City.
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John Richardson, who has been active at the Montreat Conference Center in North Carolina since he was a child, has been named vice-president for development at the storied institution.
Richardson attended Montreat conferences as a child and young adult, then served as a counselor and leader. More recently, he served as an advisory member of the Board of Directors, was on President's Council, and helped found the Collegiate Conference.
Richardson will receive a master of divinity degree from Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, GA, this month. He begins his new work at Montreat on June 1.
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Richard N. Ostling, a religion reporter for the Associated Press, has been named the 2006 recipient of the Religion Newswriters Association's lifetime achievement award.
Ostling, who will retire in July after covering the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) General Assembly, will continue to write his weekly Bible column after his retirement.
Ostling played trombone in the National Guard band and wrote for Christianity Today magazine before joining the staff of Time magazine in 1969. He wrote 20 cover pieces for the news magazine and did some pioneering work in broadcast journalism by covering religion for CBS radio and working on PBS' "MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour." In 1998, he began working at AP, where he helped shape the wire service's religion coverage. -- Adelle M. Banks, Religion News Service
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Ghost Ranch Education and Retreat Center in Abiquiu and Santa Fe, NM, has named Donna Lee as director of development.
Lee was formerly president of her own full-service advertising, marketing and communications agency in Illinois. She also served as national director of communications for the American Baptist Churches (USA), where she successfully managed fundraising initiatives, designed and implemented a new national identity program and represented 37 organizational programs.
Lee comes to New Mexico from Wisconsin. She assumed her new position on May 1 and is based in Santa Fe.
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The Rev. John Wimberly, pastor, Western Presbyterian Church in the nation's capital, has been inducted into the Washington, D.C. Hall of Fame.
The induction took place April 23 at the sixth annual Hall of Fame dinner at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Washington with more than 600 people in attendance.
Wimberly was chosen in the religion category. He is the first Presbyterian to be inducted.
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The Rev. Robert C. Lodwick, a retired minister who was longtime PC(USA) area secretary for Europe, has been named Volunteer of the Year by the Lazarus Project, a Los Angeles-based organization that works for the full inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered Presbyterians in the life of the church.