Musician/Organist
Brief info
Ft. Worth native | Graduate of Eastern Hills High School | 2 years of college at what was then Arlington State College (now UT/Arlington), then transferred to South Campus (UT/Austin)---Hook ‘em!
Major: Bachelor of Music in Piano Pedagogy
Began a master’s degree in music (also at UT/Austin) but in 1968 had a knockdown-dragout encounter with Jesus Christ (He won!), and the next thing I knew, I was in seminary, a shock for everyone (including the seminary!). It was Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, KY. I graduated with a Master of Divinity in Theology. In the summers in between my 3 years there, I worked as youth director in Parkersburg, West Virginia (1969) and Adel, Georgia (1970).
By a variety of circumstances which I don’t have time to relate here, I ended up as a guest minister way up in northwestern Vermont, only 20 miles from the Canadian border, for 2 months, which turned into 3, which turned into a year, and by that time I could see the handwriting on the wall and transferred my conference membership from Central Texas (where I had received my deacon’s orders in 1969) to Troy Conference (almost all of Vermont plus the northeastern slice of New York state). I served 7 years in that Vermont pastorate (Georgia Center and St. Albans Bay UMC’s) and then moved about 2 ½ hours south to the pastorate at Argyle and Fortsville UMC’s in New York state (about 53 miles northeast of Albany, very near the Vermont border), where I stayed for 10 years.
At the end of that time I headed for Edinburgh, Scotland, to work on my PhD in early church history (the dates from AD 200-451) at the University of Edinburgh, graduating in 1994. I could have returned to pastoring, but in the Northeast, pastoring had largely become do this, do that, and do the other, and thinking was optional, which I found depressing! So I returned to Texas and waited. In 1994 I became the organist/pianist at Handley UMC in eastern Ft. Worth, and in 1995 I became an adjunct professor at Texas Wesleyan University, through the years working up to full professor of Religion, Philosophy, and Humanities. I retired from the UMC ministry in 2013 (Upper New York conference). I’m still teaching, though (love it!). Retirement? Unsure!
Status: crusty old bachelor, for reasons unknown. I think, like Handel, I’m married to my work!
Hobbies: cooking, traveling (21 countries so far), reading (voraciously), cats (I have 3), and travel photography. I used to do a lot of hiking (not in Texas, though) and swimming (but asthma got in the way). Passions: LEARNING and THINKING!!!!