Focus Group Leader Biographies

1. CARLTON YOUNG is a teacher, editor, composer, and conductor who had the unique distinction of serving as the editor for two revisions of hymnals for Methodists:  The Methodist Hymnal, 1966 and The United Methodist Hymnal 1989. 

2. HOY SOOK JEON-KIM has studied music all over the world, including Korea and Germany.  Presently, she serves as the music director for Wilshire United Methodist Church Cathedral Choir in Los Angeles.

3. FAYE WILSON, Ph.D., is an educator and church musician who seeks to help people "love God more dearly and follow God more nearly" through study and worship.  Through her company, VocalChords, she offers workshops for churches and choirs to enhance the integrity of worship through praise songs and performance music.  For 20 years, she served the General Board of Global Ministries as an educator, developing materials to help people fully understand the church's wide variety of mission projects.

4. MARY KATHRYN PEARCE is an elder in the United Methodist Church and is a member of the Illinois Great Rivers Conference, where she is presently appointed to Dunlap Prospect United Methodist Church.  Ms. Pearce has related to Schools of Christian Mission for 20 years, has written numerous spiritual growth retreats and program materials, and has served as a member of the General Commission on the Status and Role of Women.

5. ANN CRAIG began her career in mission as a US2 serving in campus ministry.  She studied religion at Nebraska Wesleyan and Yale Divinity School.  As the executive secretary for spiritual development for the Women's Division for more than a decade, she has coordinated the annual spiritual growth mission studies for United Methodist Women.  A frequent contributor to Response, she continues her education by studying early church theology at Drew University.

6. RUTH DAUGHERTY, a former Women's Division president, is a free lance educator/consultant who has been involved most of her life in church-related activities, such as serving in various offices in United Methodist Women.  She has served on various boards and agencies of the denomination, has taught at regional and conference schools of Christian mission, and has served as an adjunct professor at Drew Theological Seminary.  She is the author of The Missionary Spirit:  History of Mission of the Methodist Protestant Church;  United Methodist Women in Mission; and a variety of articles in publications of the denominations.

7. GWEN WHITE has been involved with children for years.  She was involved for seven years in a Washington, D.C., and Rhode Island tutorial programs.  She served as a staff assistant to a Title I program in the East Greenwich, RI, schools.  She was also a member of the New Jersey Area Task Force and the New York Conference Task Force on Spiritual Formation.  A writer and workshop leader, much of her work has focused on communication skills, spiritual disciplines, spirituality in the family, spirituality of children, journaling, and intergenerational education and ministries.

8. BETSY SINGLETON - As a child, Rev. Betsy Singleton loved Craypas, music, television and faraway places.  Though she tried majoring in art and communications, she ended up with an English literature degree from Hendrix college and a Master of Divinity from Perkins School of Theology.  She later returned to the arts though and with friend Willie Rhodes, jr., she began HeARTwork, an arts and spirituality mission center, which is a project of the Little Rock District churches.

9. JORETTA MARSHALL  

10. DIANA BROWN HOLBERT is the pastor of ARTSPIRIT, a United Methodist ministry in the arts community of Dallas.  Begun in March 2000, this ministry serves professional musicians, visual artists, dancers, actors, writers, filmmakers, and others who seek an alternative to traditional church buildings, styles of worship or times for gathering.  She is currently appointed by her bishop as a missionary of the General Board of Global Ministries.

11. N. LYNNE WESTFIELD is assistant professor of religious education at Drew Theological Seminary.  A permanent, ordained elder in Eastern Pennsylvania, her interests include issues of womanist pedagogy, African-American women's studies, and mysticism.  Lynne has provided leadership in Christian Education as a consultant and preacher across the United States, as well as Japan, the Caribbean and Israel.

12. ROBIN SMALL-MCCARTHY is an educator, performer, artists, writer, poet, and consultant on drama in education and community activism.  A former Women's Division executive, she has taught at all levels of education and currently serves as an instructor of English composition, literature and the humanities at New York City's technical careers institute.  Her work is grounded in liberation theology and a commitment to nurturing the creativity, spirituality and social awareness of persons.

13. ANNA RHEE  

14. SUSANNE PAUL, president of Global Action on Aging, works on social and economic issues affecting older persons worldwide.  She wrote Humanity Comes of Age, one of the 1999 mission studies of United Methodist Women.  She is also the New York-based United Nations representative for the World Federation of Methodist and Uniting Church Women.

15. MAGDA MORALES was born in the continental United States of parents from Puerto Rico.  She has held a variety of leadership positions among Hispanics in the United Methodist Church as well as within ecumenical settings.  She was a member of the executive committee of MARCHA, the national caucus of Hispanic United Methodists.  She was elected vice president of the National Ecumenical Hispanic Council in 1992.  An active United Methodist Woman, she currently serves as consultant to the Women's Division on Hispanic United Methodist Women, their needs and resources..

16. SALLY GRAHAM ERNST, former president of the Women's Division, is a member of the Northeastern Jurisdiction Episcopacy committee and serves on a variety of committees at the local level.  She's been a study group leader at regional and conference schools of Christian Mission, has served as a member of the General Commission on the Status and Role of Women, and has participated in conferences and meetings around the world.. 

17. LEONORA TORRES, former director of the Women's Division, was born in Temuci, Childe.  She came to the U.S. when she was 13 years old with her family to Connecticut.  Leonora graduated from Emerson College with a degree in Speech therapy in 1985.  She worked for eight years with battered women and children, at which time she became very involved in support groups which incorporated spiritual healing with abused women who had lost their connection with themselves and God. Her experience led her to find Center for Holistic Arts in Massachusetts, of which she is the executive director.

18. MARCIA GLECKLER retired from the Women's Division in 1998, where she was the executive secretary for resource development with a responsibility for developing program resources for United Methodist Women.  She wrote regularly for Response magazine, including the series "Postcards from the Road" and "Bright Lights."  In retirement, Marcia works as a freelance writer, editor, resource developer and video producer.

19. BARBARA BIBBEE, employed by the General Board of Global Ministries(GBGM) since 1995, serves as director of current and deferred giving for the north and south central jurisdictions of the United Methodist Church.  Prior to that, she served the East Ohio Conference United Methodist health and welfare agency where she spent considerable time cultivating and managing major planned gifts and bequests.  LYNETTE DAVIS RICE, CPA, is principal owner of L.D. Rice and Associates, a financial and estate planning firm specializing in charitable giving.  She has been consulting to the General Board of Global Ministries for the past 11 years.  Prior to that, she served as the general comptroller to the Board.  ANNA BETH SIMMONS has been employed by GBGM since 1999 as director of current and deferred giving for the Southeastern jurisdiction.  She resides in Charlotte, NC.   DORIS L. GIDNEY, CFP (certified financial planner), was a former director of GBGM  and was employed for 23 years as a field director for the giving program.  She still works as a consultant to it.    She has written sseveral articles for Response magazine and New World Outlook.  BETTY LETZIG, a native of Hardin, Mo., is a commissioned deaconess who served as the executive secretary of the deaconess program office and mission personnel services and as liaison to the Alaska Missionary Conference.  She has served as a consultant for the giving program since 1995.

21. IFE WILLIAMS is committed to assisting in the elimination of global racism and all its vestiges.  She received her doctorate in political science from Clark-Atlanta University in 1998 and did her post-doctorate studies in Afro-American studies at the University of Illinois.  Her research interests are women, race, police brutality and international affairs.  She has been involved in the World Conference Against Racism in assisting non-governmental organizations and in the investigation of racism in the criminal justice system, in the international arena, and within the Church.

22. DIANE VOGLER taught in elementary schools for 17 years and then became an elementary principal for 15 years.  Since June 2000, she's been serving as a director of daycare ministries for First United Methodist Church of North Little Rock, Ark.  She's served in a variety of United Methodist Women positions, as a director and vice president for the Women's Division, as a director of the General Board of Global Ministries, and as a member of the Camp Aldersgate board of directors.

23. INELLE BAGWELL is a native of the Texas Panhandle, currently living in Philadelphia, Penn.  Former vice president of the Women's Division and director of the General Board of Global Ministries, she currently volunteers with the American Friends Service Committee's Religious Organizing Against the Death Penalty program.  She serves as president of board of Hacienda Springs, a center for women's creativity and culturing in El Paso, Texas.

24. JOY CAROL is a spiritual director, counselor and author who leads retreats and workshops on spirituality, healing, prayer, and healing for dying and living at many places, including Union Theological Seminary, retreat centers, and other groups.  She is on the healing ministry staff of the St. Luke's School of Christian Healing in Darien, Conn., and at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. 

25. MURDEN WOODS retired in 1996 after more than 30 years on the staff of the Women's Division.  She also served as a short-term missionary to India and a commissioned missionary to Pakistan.  Since retirement, she is her local church member of her Annual Conference and the co-chair of the staff/pastor parish relations committee.

26. MARSHA BASE is the assistant general secretary for administration with the Women's Division where she oversees staff development; long range planning; international ministries with women, children and youth; and work with United Methodist Women conference presidents.  Currently, she is pursuing an M.S. in administration at the University of Notre Dame.

27. EDIE RASELL is an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, at think tank in Washington, D.C.  Rasell's primary areas of research are health care financing, social insurance programs, and labor economics.  She has written numerous papers for the Economic Policy Institute and her work has been published in the American Economic Review and the New England Journal of Medicine as well as other journals and the popular press.

28. PEGGY HUTCHISON

29. RUTH PRUDENTE  

30. BRENDA G. MITCHELL 

31. BARBARA WEAVER is a doctoral candidate in the School of Education at Boston College.  Her area of study is curriculum and instruction, focusing on urban and anti-racist multi-cultural education.  Before returning to school full time, Barbara was the Assistant General Secretary for the section of Mission and Membership Development in the Women's Division.

32. BENI IVEY is the executive director of the Center for Democratic Renewal, an Atlanta-based non-profit organization which monitors, researches, and reports far right movements against democracy.  The Center's recent work, chronicling the epidemic rate of Black church burnings in the South, received national media attention.  Ms. Ivey has an impressive career advocating for social and political change in America, which spans three decades.  SANDRA PETERS founder and president of Just Services, where she consults with the National Black Caucus of State Legislators, the National Institute for Dialogues and Multi-Culturalism and Anti-Racism; and the General Board of Global Ministries' team on ministries in the midst of hate and violence.  She has a long history of anti-racism and justice work. 

33. JEREMY WOODRUM is the Washington director of the Free Burma Coalition, the largest grassroots group in the world dedicated to promoting freedom and democracy in the Southeast Asian country of Burma.  This coalition has led several successful campaigns to prevent U.S. corporations from propping up Burma's dictatorship, including campaigns against Pepsi, Best Western, and Haines.  Woodrum won a Patrick Stewart Human Rights Scholarship from Amnesty International in 1998.

34. WILLY BAPTIST, formerly homeless, was on welfare for 10 years with his family.  During that time, he was on workfare for 5 years.  Now, a prolific author, he serves as the education director and war council member for the Kensington Welfare Rights Union.  He co-coordinates the University of the Poor and is the founder and program coordinator of the Annie Smart Leadership Development Institute.  LIZ THEOHARIS is a member of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union in Philadelphia.  She is co-coordinator of the University of the Poor, the education arm of the poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, which networks over 50 poor people's organizations across the United States from farm workers in Florida to housing projects in New Jersey to workfare workers in San Francisco. 

35. RITU SHARMA , a first-generation American of East Indian heritage, created Women's EDGE in 1998 to advocate for U.S. action to raise the status of women and girls in developing countries.  Her family left behind generations of violence against women and poverty in Punjab, India, to build a new life in the U.S.  She is a leading coalition builder, bringing people and organizations together to create better lives for women and girls.  Her advocacy led Congress to allocate close to $100 million for children's education in poor countries in 1995.

36. DENISE O'BRIEN  is a farmer, community activist, and United Methodist Woman.  She has farmed with her husband, Larry Harris, for 25 years in southwest Iowa near the town of Atlantic.  During this time she has used organic practices in her crops of appes, strawberries, raspberries, and poultry.  She is the coordinator of the Women, Food and Agriculture network, whose mission is to "link and amplify women's voices on issues of food systems, sustainable communities, and environmental integrity."  She's also addressed the United Nations General Assembly on the issue.  ELLEN KIRBY is director of Brooklyn GreenBridge, the community horticulture program of Brooklyn Botanic Garden in New York City.  She came to the botanic gardens in 1993 after leaving the Women's Division.  There, she collaborated the Urban Composting Project.  She graduated from Union Theological Seminary and has a certificate in horticulture from Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

38. ANN CROWLEY is the field services director for the Older Women's League (OWL), the voice of midlife and older women.  She is responsible for the oversight and growth of OWL's affiliates.  She has a history of public policy work.  

39. LAURA PARTRIDGE, an independent artist, is certified as a Master Artist in Theatre by the Nebraska Arts Council.  She is an actor, director, producer, African storyteller, arts administrator and Theatre of the Oppressed technician.  Her work emphasizes racial justice and history as well as contemporary issues of Africans and African-Americans.

40. GILLIAN GILHOOL, lawyer, feminist and peace activist, is legislative organizer and director of the Washington office of the U.S. section of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.  Since participation in the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, her work has significantly focused on gender and global economic justice issues.  BRUCE GAGNON is the coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space.  He organized the Cancel Cassini Campaign that drew enormous support and media coverage around the world and was featured on the TV program, 60 Minutes.  He has traveled and spoken around the world on the issue of space weaponization and is a prolific author.

41. NJOKE NJEHU  

42. GUY DAUNCEY is an author, organizer and sustainable communities consultant who specializes in developing a positive vision of a post-industrial, environmentally sustainable future and translating that visit into action.  He is the author of Stormy Weather:  101 Solutions to Global Climate Change and A Sustainable Energy Plan for the U.S.

43.ANDRIS SALTER serves as the executive secretary for environmental justice for the Women's Division.  Previously she worked for the Division with conference organizations and for the General Council of Ministries as the coordinator of Strengthening the Black Church for the 21st century.  She is a seasoned workshop leader on racism, financial promotion, goal setting, leadership development, membership, and has taught at numerous Schools of Christian Mission.

44. KYUNG ZA YIM has been involved in serving others since the late 1950s when she attend Ewha Girl's High School in Korean.  After 36 years, she recently retired from the office of Mental health of New York State.  Now a director of the Women's Division, she serves the section of Christian Social Responsibility.

45. CYNTHIA KENT is the executive secretary for Native American and Indigenous Ministries with the General Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church.  She is a member of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe of Ignacio, Col.  She has a degree in social work from Carson-Newman College in Tennessee and has worked as an education director, with the Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs, and is very active with women and Native American issues.  KATHLEEN A. THOMAS-SANO serves as assistant general secretary for the General Commission on Religion and Race.  She is assigned to work with the Western Jurisdiction and Asian American and Pacific Islanders.  MARY SILVA is the executive director of MARCHA (Methodists Associated to Represent the Cause of Hispanic Americans), the Hispanic Caucus of the United Methodist Church in the United States and Puerto Rice. MARY H. PAGE, retired professor from the University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work, continues to be actively involved by carrying leadership roles with the church and voluntary community organizations.  

46. CONNIE TAKAMINE As Women's Division treasurer, Connie is the chief financial officer of the corporation and associate treasurer of the General Board of Global Ministries.  She gives oversight to all financial operations and serves as business manager of the Division.  Connie has a long history with the organization.  Before coming to the board, she operated her own financial management consulting business that specialized in serving the economically disadvantaged.

47. DONALD BUD HECKMAN  

48. DIANA RODRIGUEZ is the Women's Division executive secretary for leadership education in the Syracuse Region.  Born and raised in Puerto Rico, she has worked extensively for the denomination and United Methodist Women since a teenager. 

49. MARY GATES is an active United Methodist Women member, serving as a Women's Division director from 1996-2004 and presently as a General Board of Global Ministries director.  Ms. Gates is a member of a small inner city church, has attended two United Nations World Conferences on Women; has been a delegate/observer at three World Federation of Methodist and Uniting Church Women meetings; and attended the Women and Media Conference in Toronto for the Women's Division.

50. RESSIE MAE BASS is executive secretary for Membership for the Women's Division.  No stranger to United Methodist Women, Ressie served as president of the Florida Conference, as vice president and chairperson of the section on Christian Social Relations of the Women's Division, and as a member of the General Commission on the Status and Role of Women.

51. KOLYA BRAUN-GREINER is a graduate of Union Theological Seminary with a Masters of Divinity.  The focus of her studies was on ethics in worship expressed through lay leadership.  While there, she helped form a group, the Ecologians, which promoted environmentally sound living within seminary.  An involved United Methodist Woman, former staff of the Women's Division, and an advocate for social justice issues, she now works full time as the mother of a toddler and part time as a consultant and writer of curriculum and devotional resources.

52. CHERYL HEMMERLE is the executive secretary for young women for the Women's Division.  She has primary responsibility for developing and promoting membership, programs, leadership, and resources with teens and college/university women as well as training for adults with these young women.

53. DONNA J. PAUSTIAN is a native of Kansas who has lived in Texas since 1963.  Currently, she is a volunteer consultant for the Women's Division for the United Methodist Women's Membership Campaign through 2002.  A seasoned, United Methodist Women member, she has held numersous district and conference offices, and served as a director of the General Board of Global Ministries.

54. BARBARA SCOTT has been involved with United Methodist Women for the past 45 years.  She has served on the local, district, and Kansas East Conference United Methodist Women, and as assistant dean for the West Gulf Regional School of Christian Mission.  Since 1987, she has volunteered with the Kansas State Department of Corrections on behalf of United Methodist Women and has grown in many ways as she's worked with incarcerated family members and their children. KAREN BARRACO is contact person for the unit of United Methodist Women at the Muncy State Correctional Institution for women in Muncy, Penn.  The MSCI unit, formed in June 200, is the first such United Methodist Women's unit in a women's prison.  Karen has served in many district United Methodist Women's positions and is the coordinator of ministries at Muncy First United Methodist Church.

55. DORCAS RODRIGUEZ is from Syracuse, NY, and a recent graduate from the State University of New York at Utica/Rome with a B.S. in Health Information Management.  She's been involved in United Methodist Women since a young girl, serving on the conference mission team and on the Women's Division college/university women task force.

56. WENDY WHITESIDE  

57. MARTHA (TWICK) MORRISON, former Women's Division director and vice president, has served the United Methodist Church in numerous capacities.  Besides her tenure on the Women's Division, she was a director of the General Board of Global Ministries, which administers the mission work of United Methodism through over 9,000 projects in 90 countries and the United States.  She has contributed to Response magazine and currently serves as one of five elected United Methodists on the National Council of Churches.

58. SANDY RUBY joined the Women's Division staff in 1988 and has served regional offices in Dallas, Texas, and now in the Indianapolis area.  A teacher by profession, her work with the Division is primarily that of education as she works with conference and district leaders of United Methodist Women as she develops, plans and leads workshops for them.

59. THELMA JOHNSON is past vice president of the Women's Division.  She has served as a study leader in Schools of Christian Missions for many years and has spoken in 37 states.  She has also served as vice president of the General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns.

60. NANCY CARTER is an internet consultant for the General Board of Global Ministries and is responsible for the development of several of the online spiritual growth studies for adults.  She has also written and edited many resources for United Methodist Women, including the spiritual growth study, Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew: Who Do You Say I Am?

61. JANE BUCHER was vice president of the Women's Division and chairperson of the section of finance from 1996-2000.  She lives in Park City, Kenn., and is a member of Park City United Methodist Church.  She has held various offices in the local, district and conference organizations of United Methodist Women.  She has a B.A. from DePauw University and a Masters of Social Work from Indiana University.

62. DEBORAH O’NEIL  

63. MAXINE CLARK BEACH, vice president and dean of the Theological School at Drew University comes from Dayton, Ohio, where she was the Associate General Secretary for the denomination's General Council on Ministries.    Dean Beach has indicated that, "strong theological education is essential for the leaders in our faith communities if they are to insist on justice and risk new thoughts."  She is the first woman and lay person to be installed as the head of a United Methodist Seminary.