Coadjunctors Elected in Lexington, Western Mich.
Episcopal News Service. June 21, 1984 [84131]
NEW YORK (DPS, June 21) -- The first week of June saw the election of two new bishops coadjutor: The Very Rev. Don A. Wimberly in the Diocese of Lexington and the Rev. Howard S. Meeks in the Diocese of Western Michigan.
Wimberly, whose election occurred just prior to his 47th birthday, will become the fifth bishop of Lexington (eastern Kentucky) at the retirement of the Rt. Rev. Addison Hosea. Since 1978, Wimberly has been dean of St. John's Cathedral in Jacksonville, Fla. A native of Baton Rouge, La., he was ordained to the priesthood in December of 1971 and has served churches there and in New York and Kansas. He also served on diocesan council and was elected a deputy to the 1976, 1979, 1982, and 1985 General Conventions.
Prior to attending Virginia Seminary, Wimberly was in the United States Army and spent five years as an analyst for the Kerr-McGee Corporation in Oklahoma. During that time, he married Edwina Aileen Jones, and the couple have two children: Julie, 15, and Brent, 11.
The Diocese of Western Michigan, comprising the western half of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, elected Meeks to serve with and succeed the Rt. Rev. Charles E. Bennison, who has been diocesan bishop there since 1960. Meeks, 51, has been rector of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, a 600-communicant parish in Fort Pierce, Fla. which also operates a school, since 1973.
A veteran of the U.S. Navy, Meeks worked as an accountant with Sun Oil Company for four years before entering the Philadelphia Divinity School. He was ordained priest in December of 1964 and has served parishes in his native Pennsylvania, as well as in Ohio and Delaware. In addition, he has been on the diocesan council and Standing Committee, and was elected an alternate deputy to the 1979 General Convention. He and his wife, Anne Sanderson Vail, have three grown children.