Yale Divinity School

Last year was the Fiftieth Anniversary of Gene McAfee’s ’85 M.Div. congregation, Faith United Church of Christ, in Richmond Heights, OH; an eastern suburb of Cleveland. (And please hold those Cleveland jokes, will you? Cleveland is a wonderful place to live, which Gene will be more than happy to demonstrate for any of you who care to visit!) The year was filled with celebratory activities, the highlight of which was a ten-day trip to the U.K. to trace their Puritan roots. The tripe was a load of fun, and if anyone is planning a similar excursion, Gene would be happy to share the tips he learned from the experience, which was overwhelmingly positive. Life, including work, grows sweeter by the day.

Notes from 2007

Rev. Timothy C. Ahrens ’85  M.Div. is senior minister at First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ in Columbus, Ohio. Ahrens has become a strong and respected voice in the community, teaching, lecturing and building relationships with other city leaders to work for improved education, fair housing, health care reform, equal rights, and abolition of the death penalty. Ahrens helped found Sanctorum, an organization in Columbus serving the GLBT community and was one of the founders of We Believe Ohio, a coalition of religious leaders and lay people working to strengthen the voice of religiously diverse people in the public square. Ahrens’s writing has appeared in various publications including The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and Christianity Today, and he is the author of Acts Comes Alive, 12 Keys for Reviving the Church. He has been a guest on both radio and television news programs and was featured on Nightline the evening before the November 7, 2006, election. In 2006, he received the Norman Thomas Peace Activist Award. Ahrens and wife, Susan, have been married since 1985 and are the parents of three children.

Having retired from church and community work in Bethany, CT, Betsy Bergen ’85 M.Div. and her husband now live in Loomis Village, a retirement community in South Hadley, MA, where Betsy continues to minister as preacher and teacher to 35-45 folks there.

Paul Bussan ’85 M.A.R., after 15 years as a carpenter, established his own imprint, PSB Publishing, in 2003 to bring out his first collection of poetry, A Rage Of Intelligence (www.psbpublishing.com).  Three poems from that collection appeared in Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac.  Now living in Cheshire, CT, Paul is at work on his second collection of poetry.

Phyllis (P. J.) Leopold ’85 M.Div. is in her sixth year as executive director of the Association of Religious Communities (ARC) in Danbury, CT, where she directs programs addressing such issues as housing, immigrants and refugees, domestic violence prevention, and emergency aid. For the last three years she's also been teaching the practicum class at YDS on "Social Change Ministries."

Peter W. Marty ’85 M.Div., senior pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Davenport, IA, continues as host of Grace Matters, the weekly radio ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which reaches a million listeners every Sunday. Peter and wife Susan, who have been married for 23 years, are the parents of college-age Jacob and Rachel, a junior in high school.

Nearing the end of his 4th year as pastor of Faith UCC in Richmond Heights, OH, an eastern suburb of Cleveland, Gene McAfee ’85 M.Div. continues to settle into life back in his native Midwest after more than 20 years on the east coast and 2 years in Edinburgh, Scotland. Summer highlights included attending General Synod in Hartford and leading a “Roots of Congregationalism” tour of the UK.

Scott McRae ’85 M.Div. recently was appointed Director of Spiritual Care at Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park, MN, where he serves as Clinical Pastoral Education supervisor. Scott and wife, Melanie Alman '86 M.Div., live in Minneapolis and have a 15-year-old daughter.  He also serves at a training program for spiritual directors in St. Paul.

Caroline (Keeney) Meyers ’85 M.Div., her husband Tom, and children Rebecca (13) and Sam (11) have settled in Amherst, MA, where Caroline has been pastor of South Congregational Church for just over a year.  Prior to her current position, Caroline has been an associate pastor twice, a college chaplain twice, an interim pastor twice, and a solo pastor twice.  She'll be happy if she can retire from South Congregational.

Pamela Mott ’85 M.Div. is finishing her 3rd year at St. Mary's church in Portsmouth, RI, where she is able to walk by the water on 100 beautiful island acres every day. Pam recently began a program with the Shalem Institute to renew and deepen the spiritual practices that keep her going, as well as finding ways to offer that gift more deeply in the life of her congregation.

J. Ashley Null ’85 M.Div., ’89 S.T.M., Canon Theologian for the Episcopal Diocese of Western Kansas, has just completed a year as a visiting Guggenheim Fellow at the University of Cambridge and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. In addition to his work on Thomas Cranmer, Null enjoys the cross-cultural challenge of writing German articles on Anglicanism for the new Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit, and serving as a sports chaplain, most recently as the resident Anglican priest living in the Olympic Village in Athens.

Jeffrey Oak’85 M.Div., ’86 S.T.M., ’93 M.A., ’95 M.Phil., ’96 Ph.D.is Corporate Responsibility Officer for Bon Secours Health System.  Based in Maryland, Jeff is responsible for helping to maintain a "culture of integrity" across the Bon Secours system that has ministries in nine states.  He and Carol Pinkham Oak (also class of 1985) are the parents of Nathaniel, a high school senior, and Julia, who is in her first year at St. George's School, an Episcopal boarding school in Newport, RI.

Steve Petrica ’85 M.Div. practiced as a psychotherapist and is now Director of Quality Management at a pediatric mental health facility in Baltimore.  An ordained priest in the Anglican church, Steve was received into the Catholic Church on October 9, 2006 and awaits news on his [re-]ordination.

Anne Stanback ’85 M.A.R. and Charlotte Kinlock celebrated their 23rd anniversary in October. They met when Anne was doing her YDS field placement at a local non-profit organization, so she will always be grateful to the school for more than just a superb education. For the last six years, Anne has been the Executive Director of Love Makes a Family, Connecticut's marriage equality organization.

J. Brad Stone ’85 M.Div., a partner in his own investment firm, continues to live with his wife, Claudia, in Minneapolis, where they are active members in Plymouth Congregational Church, along with son Devin.  The Stones' other son, Cameron, began at the University of Denver this fall.

Carey Walsh ’85 M.Div. is happily teaching theology at none other than Walsh University, has published two books and several articles, and is enjoying her Catholicism immensely.  She writes, "September 11th focused me to real life, real learning, and not wasting time with pretensions. So, it's a beautiful world, I say with conviction."