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VOL. 14, NO. 11

Retiree class of 2003 includes several firsts

BY LINDA WORTHINGTON UMCONNECTION STAFF

Twelve ordained elders from the Baltimore-Washington Conference, representing 390 years of combined service to the denomination, will retire this year, joining three retiring local pastors who have served their churches a combined 38 years.

Four of this years retirees are clergywomen, including one who is the first ordained white woman in the conference, one who is the first black female district superintendent and one who has spent most of her tenure in extension ministry serving elsewhere.

The Rev. Susan Beehler isnt seen around the conference much because her appointment has been to extension ministry in El Paso, Texas, where she composes music and does counseling and therapy for clients. In retirement, she plans to continue her activities, including teaching college courses, but on a limited schedule that gives her more time for rest and reflection, she said.

The Rev. Albert Galloway Jr. has served the longest among the retirees. He was a hospital chaplain for most of his 45 years in ministry, including 23 years at Indiana University Medical Center and another 14 in Florida. For much of his career, he has ministered to patients who either received or donated transplanted organs, and to their families.

Galloway believes he performed the first wedding to take place between two people with kidney transplants. The ceremony occurred in a small United Methodist church in Tipton, Ind. They had 19 years together before one of them died, he said.

Its been more than 35 years since the Rev. Kathryn Bailey Moore was ordained in the East Ohio Conference. A year later, 1968, she became the second ordained female clergy in the conference, many years after the Rev. Emma Burrell, a black woman, had served.

Moores ministry has broken ground in other ways as well. Most of her ministry has been as a white pastor to mostly black congregations, one white woman (serving) among the brothers, she said. Her pastorates included 11 years at Douglas Memorial UMC in Washington, D.C.

Moore retired in January and for the first time has become a homeowner, something she enjoys, she said. She will continue pursuing her interests, to see the church be what it can be.

The Rev. Mary Brown Oliver had a career as an assistant principal and teacher for 28 years before she entered the ministry. For someone who had been a pastor for less than 10 years, it came as a surprise to be asked to serve as a district superintendent, the first black female in that position in the conference and the second in the United States.

She remembers well the day in 1990 when Bishop Joseph Yeakel asked her to serve as superintendent of the Washington Central District (now Washington-Columbia District). It was her birthday.

She served the six-year term, then was asked to stay two more years for missional purposes. A highlight of her career was to speak before the Zimbabwe annual conference on its 100th anniversary.

The Rev. Guy Johnson leaves Goshen UMC in Gaithersburg in June. It is the only church he has ever served, 14 years as a full-time appointed pastor and 10 before that as its part-time local pastor. When he was appointed, he retired from his job as shop planner at the National Institutes of Health.

Ive served in this district longer in the same church than anyone else, he said. With this second retirement, hes looking forward to a change of pace, including enjoying cruises with his wife and possibly moving to Florida eventually.

Three local pastors will also officially retire this year, although one, the Rev. William Kercheval, has been hired by the district superintendent to continue serving another year at Mt. Bethel UMC in Smithsburg, where he has been a local pastor for 19 years.

Kercheval also worked as a public school teacher, which relieved the church of having to pay him a full-time salary. He believes small churches struggle to pay both apportionments and salaries. Ive wanted to give a church good service without it costing them an arm and a leg, he said.