Stewart Wood Elected Coadjutor of Michigan
Episcopal News Service. May 12, 1988 [88096]
DETROIT (DPS, May 12) -- The Rev. R. Stewart Wood, Jr., 53, rector of St. John's Church, Memphis, Tenn., has been elected Bishop Coadjutor of Michigan.
His election on the fifth ballot took place on May 7 at a special electing diocesan convention held at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Detroit. His electors were the 385 clergy of the diocese and lay delegates representing the 190 congregations of the diocese that are spread throughout the eastern half of the state.
Bishop-elect Wood, who was born and raised in Detroit, is a graduate of Dartmouth College and Virginia Theological Seminary and also holds a masters degree in counseling and sociology from Ball State University. He is presently working toward a D.Min. at Virginia Seminary.
He has served as curate of St. Paul's, Columbus, Ind.; vicar of the Brown County Mission, Bean Blossom, Ind.; associate and rector of All Saints Church, Indianapolis; and rector of Christ Church, Glendale, Ohio.
He has served on diocesan councils and standing committees, and he was a deputy to General Convention from 1970 to 1976 and in 1982. For six years, he directed a diocesan casework and counseling agency in the inner city of Indianapolis.
He is married to the former Kristin Miller, and they have three children, ages 22 to 29.
Wood was one of twelve candidates, seven of whom were placed in nomination from the floor, and one of four remaining on the fifth ballot.
Among the five candidates placed in nomination by the diocesan nominating committee was the Rev. Helen M. Havens, rector of St. Stephen's Church, Houston, Tex., whose name is now destined to go down in the annals as one of the earliest female candidates for the House of Bishops. Havens withdrew after the third ballot.
The other three candidates nominated by the committee were: the Rev. Canon Harold T. Lewis, staff officer for Black Ministries at the Episcopal Church Center in New York; the Rev. Hays Rockwell, rector of St. James' Church, New York City; and the Rev. J. Daniel Burke, rector of St. Martin's Church, Providence, R.I.
Nominated from the floor were the Rt. Rev. H. Irving Mayson, Suffragan Bishop of Michigan; the Rev. Robert F. Wollard, field director, Whitaker Theological School, Detroit; the Rev. Peter H. Beckwith, rector of St. John's Church, Worthington, Ohio; the Rev. Henry A. Doherty of the Diocese of Indianapolis; the Rev. A. Raymond Babin, rector of St. Paul's Church, Romeo, Mich., the Rev. K. Dexter Cheney, diocesan administrator of the Diocese of Michigan; and the Very Rev. Bertram N. Herlong, dean of the Cathedral of St. Paul in Detroit.
On the fifth and final ballot, the bishop-elect had 121 clerical and 216 lay votes, Rockwell had 62 clerical and 102 lay, Mayson had 36 clerical and 52 lay, and Doherty had one lay vote.
Bishop-elect Wood will succeed the retiring Diocesan, the Rt. Rev. H. Coleman McGhee, Jr., when he retires. McGehee has been Bishop of Michigan since 1973.