June Sees Spate Of Episcopal Elections
Episcopal News Service. June 26, 1986 [86142]
NEW YORK (DPS, June 26) -- June, traditionally a month for weddings, this year was a time of Episcopal elections, as well. The Rev. George Edmonds Bates, the Rev. Donald Purple Hart and the Very Rev. Calvin Cabell Tennis were elected to diocesan posts in Utah, Hawaii and Delaware, respectively, and the Ven. Arthur Benjamin Williams, Jr. was elected suffragan of Ohio.
Bates, 52, received news of his election while on route from the June meeting of the Episcopal Church's Executive Council, of which he is a member. He will succeed the Rt. Rev. Otis Charles in the Diocese of Utah, which comprises the state of Utah, excluding Navajoland.
A native of Binghamton, N.Y., Bates has been rector of St. Mark-on-the-Mesa in Albuquerque, N.M. since 1984. He holds a BA from Dartmouth College (1955) and a BD from the Episcopal Theological School (1958). Ordained to the diaconate in June 1958 and to the priesthood a year later, Bates then served parishes in Ithaca and Syracuse, N.Y., and as chaplain at Onondaga Community College. In June 1956, he married Mary Sue Onstott, and they have two children. He was a deputy to General Convention in 1967 and from 1973-82, as well as at the Special Convention of 1969, during which year he was also deputy to provincial synod. He also served as a member of the bishop's cabinet and as chair of the diocesan Department of Communications. He has been on the executive committee of Coalition-14 and served as its secretary from 1971-74.
From 1970 until his move to Albuquerque, Bates was rector of the Church of the Redeemer, Pendleton, Ore. He is a member of the Standing Commission on the Church in Small Communities. He has served on the Standing Committee on the Structure of the Church and the House of Deputies Committee on Structure, in addition to which he has been part of the Council of Advice to the President of the House of Deputies.
Hart, 49, rector of St. James Episcopal Church, Keene, N.H., was elected ninth bishop of Hawaii on the fifth ballot the same weekend as Bates' election to Utah. As bishop-elect of Hawaii -- which includes the five islands of the state of Hawaii and the Marshall Islands -- Hart succeeds the Most Rev. Edmond L. Browning, Presiding Bishop. Throughout the balloting, Hart led in both orders. On the fifth and final ballot, he received 37 clergy votes and 97 lay votes, with a majority being 33 for clergy and 85 for lay votes.
New York City-born, Hart received his BA from Williams College in Massachusetts in 1959 and his BD from the Episcopal Theological School in 1962. That same year, he married Elizabeth Ann Howard, and they have two children. Also in 1962, he was ordained to the diaconate, with ordination to the priesthood coming the following year. He was curate at the Church of the Redeemer, Newton, Mass. for two years before moving to Alaska, where he served two parishes, with a stint on the diocesan staff in between. He chaired the Commission on Ministry for five years and was president of the Standing Committee for ten. He also served as chairman of the Fairbanks Child Protection Task Force.
The Diocese of Delaware, for which the Rt. Rev. Quintin E. Primo, Jr. has been serving as interim bishop, elected Tennis, 53, to succeed Bishop William H. Clark. Now Dean of St. Mark's Cathedral, Seattle, Tennis was born in Hampton, Va. He received a BA (1954) and JD (1956) from William and Mary College and has been a practicing attorney. In 1954, he married Hyde Southall Jones, and they have four children.
Tennis took his MDiv from Virginia Theological Seminary in 1964 and was ordained to the diaconate and the priesthood in that year. He served churches in Portsmouth, Va. and Buffalo, N.Y. before his call to Seattle. He has served on the Executive Councils of the Dioceses of Western New York and Olympia, as well as on the Board of Directors of the latter. He was a deputy to the 1982 General Convention and also spent time that year as adjunct professor at the General Theological Seminary.
Williams, 51, who has been Archdeacon of Ohio since 1977, will now serve Bishop James Russell Moodey as suffragan bishop of that diocese, which comprises the northern part of the state of Ohio. Born in Providence, R.I., Williams attended Brown University there, receiving his AB in 1957. He went on to receive an STB from the General Theological Seminary in 1964 and an MA from the University of Michigan ten years later. He is an associate of the Society of St. John the Evangelist.
Ordained to the diaconate in June 1964 and to the priesthood in March of the following year, he was a Horner Fellow at Grace Church, Providence, 1964-65, and assistant at St. Mark, Riverside, for two years before becoming sub-dean of St. John's Cathedral, Providence (1967-68). He then moved to Michigan, where he served in parish and diocesan posts and spent two years on the faculty of the University of Detroit and five as part of the Michigan Diocesan Theological School. He was vice-president of the Union of Black Episcopalians from 1970-73. A deputy to General Convention 1979-82, he has served on the Joint Standing Comnittee on Program, Budget and Finance and the Advisory Committee to the President of the House of Deputies. Like Bates, he is a member of the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church.
Consecration dates for all four newly elected bishops will be set, pending approvals of the bishops and standing committees of the other dioceses.