People

Christian Century, Oct 11, 2000

* David Gibson of the Newark, New Jersey, Star Ledger and Mary Beth McCauley of the Philadelphia Inquirer have won the top reporting and writing awards respectively of the Religion Newswriters Association, the professional society for religion specialists at secular news media. The Dallas Morning News, which launched a weekly eight-page religion section in 1994, captured first place for best religion pages for the fifth time in six years. The prizes were awarded September 16 at the newswriters' annual meeting in San Francisco where David Briggs of the Cleveland Plain Dealer was elected president for a two-year term.

* The St. Olaf College Board of Regents has named Christopher M. Thomforde, president of Bethany College, as its tenth president, succeeding Mark U. Edwards Jr. Thomforde's appointment was announced September 12. Thomforde, an ELCA pastor, also served for ten years as chaplain of Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, an institution of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Both St. Olaf, in Northfield, Minnesota, and Bethany, in Lindsborg, Kansas, are ELCA-related. Edwards, who has served as St. Olaf president for six years, is scheduled to leave October 1. Thomforde will assume his new role January 15, 2001. Martin E. Marry, a CENTURY contributing editor, will serve as acting president in the interim. Marty is chair of the St. Olaf Board of Regents.

* The first Hispanic to lead a United Methodist-related seminary has been appointed president of Iliff School of Theology in Denver. David Maldonado, 57, succeeds Donald E. Messer, who served as president for 19 years. Maldonado also is the only Hispanic to lead one of the 135 Protestant denominational schools affiliated with the Association of Theological Schools. He will be professor of church and society at Iliff.

* Staccato Powell, former deputy general secretary of the National Council of Churches, has been named president and chief executive officer of Opportunities Industrialization Centers of America, a Philadelphia-based organization that trains disadvantaged and unemployed people. Leon H. Sullivan, founder and chairman of the board, announced Powell's appointment. Powell, who was an official in the NCC's National Ministries Unit, has been a pastor of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church for 22 years.

* Tom Matheny, a longtime president of the Judicial Council of the United Methodist Church, died August 31 after a lengthy illness. He was 67. Matheny, who served on the church's highest court for 28 years and as president for the past 24 years, was a Louisiana lawyer and a leader in the church's Louisiana Annual (regional) Conference.