epiScope

New name, same school

A new name for old St. Mary's
By LAURI SHEIBLEY
Burlington County (PA) Times

BURLINGTON CITY — A private school along the Delaware River, previously known as St. Mary's Hall-Doane Academy, changed its name yesterday. It will be known simply as Doane Academy.

The change was announced with much fanfare, as school trustees, elected officials, alumni, staff and students gathered for a news conference and a party. A 37-foot banner emblazoned with the new name was hung on campus in view of the motorists on the Burlington-Bristol Bridge.

“It's a bold new era for a wonderful old school,” said Headmaster John McGee.

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Support

St. Paul's students rally to support classmate
Racist letter left in girl's locker
By RENA HAVNER
Birmingham (AL) Press-Register
November 16, 2007

About 100 students at St. Paul's Episcopal School stood outside in the courtyard on a windy morning Thursday to show their support for a black classmate who received a racist, threatening letter in her locker this week.

Student Government Association President Carmen Chambers spoke for a few minutes to the news media on behalf of her peers before leading the group in prayer.

"What happened Tuesday does not reflect our student body. It contrasts everything we stand for," a poised Chambers said into a microphone after a television news reporter cued her to start so that she could go live on the air.

St. Paul's, a 1,500-student private school located in the Spring Hill neighborhood of Mobile, is about "love, encouragement and acceptance," Chambers said, "not hate."

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Faith Episcopal passes the helmet for Homes for Heroes
Faith Episcopal Church raises money for San Juan Habitat for Humanity project.
By SEAN EMERY
Orange County (CA) Register
November 15, 2007

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO - When Mike Dmytriw learned that his church was taking collections for San Juan's "Homes for Heroes" Habitat for Humanity project he knew of the perfect "hat" to pass.

Dmytriw, a 22-year Marine veteran, in a helmet that kept him safe during Vietnam, challenged the Faith Episcopal Church of Laguna Niguel's congregation to give a $1 each per week toward the 27-unit development.

"It served a lot of good purposes, but this is one of the best," Dmytriw said of the helmet. "I really felt that a part of me, and a part of the helmet and the Marine Corps was involved in something really good, that people will appreciate in the long-run. I was glad to see it involved in something positive, rather than warfare."

It’s all here … http://www.ocregister.com/news/dmytriw-church-gracen-1922671-helmet-veterans

An Episcopal order has agreed to take in the three women whose convent is being sold.
By Rebecca Trounson
Los Angeles Times
November 15, 2007

Three Roman Catholic nuns who learned last summer that their Santa Barbara convent would be sold to help cover the costs of Los Angeles' multimillion-dollar abuse payout have been offered a temporary home by an order of Episcopal nuns in the same city.

The three Sisters of Bethany will move around Thanksgiving to St. Mary's Retreat House, an Episcopal center near the Santa Barbara Mission, according to the nuns' spokesman and to a relative of one of the nuns. The center is a ministry of the Sisterhood of the Holy Nativity, an order based in Wisconsin.

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Episcopal schools

Anglican school's former students tell of brainwashing, abuse
Bishop begins inquiry involving Grenville Christian College
Neco Cockburn
The Ottawa Citizen
September 08, 2007

An Anglican bishop has begun meeting with people as part of an inquiry into allegations of abusive practices at a Brockville-area private religious school that shut its doors earlier this summer.

Grenville Christian College has faced numerous allegations since it closed at the end of July after citing changing demographics, declining enrolment and increasing operating costs.

Former students have flooded websites and told media of allegations including physical and psychological abuse.

Bishop George Bruce, of the Anglican Church's Diocese of Ontario, has started to meet with people who have filed written complaints, diocesan executive officer Wayne Varley said yesterday.

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Episcopal diocese releases timeline chronicling claims of sexual abuse
Ex-head of school apologizes for how he handled students' allegations in the 1960s.
By Eileen E. Flynn
Austin (TX) AMERICAN-STATESMAN
September 08, 2007

Over the course of four decades, the Episcopal Diocese of Texas and St. Stephen's Episcopal School officials were told repeatedly that the Rev. James L. Tucker had molested minors in the past but they took no action against the former St. Stephen's chaplain, according to a timeline released last week by the diocese.

According to the timeline, an investigation this year found at least nine people — including one from Houston not publicly acknowledged until now — who claim to be victims.

Also, for the first time since the diocese announced the allegations in May, the former head of St. Stephen's, Allen Becker, who had received allegations from students in the 1960s, has issued a public apology, saying he "should have responded differently."

Tucker, who retired in 1994, will face charges in a church trial unless he admits guilt and agrees to resign from the ministry, diocesan official said.

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New chapel
San Antonio Express-News

San Antonio's TMI — The Episcopal School of Texas is building a new chapel to replace the current one, which dates back almost 20 years. The new chapel will be used for daily morning services and will provide seating for 500 students and guests. A monthly Eucharist also will be held in the new chapel.

The chapel is designed to blend in with the look of the campus and its natural surroundings.

It is being built with an attached wing that will house three classrooms.

The school traces its history to 1893 when it was founded by James Steptoe Johnston, who would become the first bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas.

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Standing-room-only opening at 'La Cage'
Trinity Prep School play seems to benefit from free publicity after bishop's nix.
Tanya Caldwell
Orlando Sentinel
September 10, 2007

The thespians of Trinity Preparatory School opened their controversial show Friday night to a full house without the Episcopalian bishop's blessings.

They opened their theatrical season before hundreds at the Orlando Repertory Theatre, playfully prancing around in blond wigs and patent leather heels.

Some were girls. Some were boys in drag. And for the Episcopal bishop, that was the problem.

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Show goes on

Trinity Prep show moves to Orlando Repertory Theatre
Leslie Postal
Orlando Sentinel
September 6, 2007

Trinity Preparatory School's production of La Cage aux Folles will be performed off campus at a local theatre this weekend, billed as an independent show with no ties to the Episcopal school.

Headmaster Craig Maughan announced the decision in press release this morning. There will be four performances of the musical at the Orlando Repertory Theatre.

The production was to open last weekend at the private school near Winter Park but was cancelled at the request of Bishop John Howe, head of the Episcopal Diocese of Central Florida. Howe, a leader among the nation's conservative Episcopal bishops, thought the comedy featuring a gay couple and actors dressed in drag was inappropriate for a Christian school.

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Varieties of gifts

Bonds, Sosa, and me: Day on job is walk in the park
By Anne Gardner
Boston (MA) Globe
September 2, 2007

You'll probably never see Sammy Sosa at your office staff meeting. Unless, of course, you work for the Boston Red Sox.

For the past year, I have been part of the game-day operations staff at Fenway Park. I have loved baseball for as long as I can remember, introduced to the game in 1967 by my favorite aunt, a rabid and mercurial Red Sox fan who taught me to love my team even when it made my heart hurt.

Now, 40 years later, I am an ordained Episcopal minister, a vocation that shares some similarities with baseball. Both are journeys of faith, full of inexplicable false steps, and glorious moments of transformation. How my aunt would have beamed if she knew I would return four decades later to the sanctuary of my youth, but this time, with those emblematic red socks stitched on my own jersey.

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BSU growth guided by strong leadership
Bryan Dooley
Idaho Press-Tribune
September 2nd, 2007

From its inception in 1932 as the tiny Boise Junior College to its present status of the largest university in the state of Idaho 75 years later, Boise State University has overcome obstacles and experienced monumental growth.

This is in large part due to the work and determination of strong and dedicated leaders, university archivist Alan Virta said.

Virta said people had been complaining for years about the lack of a college in the Boise area before Episcopal Bishop Middleton Barnwell made it happen in 1932. “He was kid of a ‘take charge’ kind of guy,” Virta said.

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New chaplain seeks to expand faith boundaries
Chaplain plans to introduce Episcopal school students to other faiths.
By Eileen Flynn
Austin (TX) AMERICAN-STATESMAN
September 03, 2007

The Rev. Cathy Boyd, who looks a good decade younger than her 49 years, has cropped blonde hair, deep blue eyes and passion for pushing the boundaries of her faith.

Recently ordained, she found a job uniquely suited to her personality: upper school chaplain and diversity officer at Trinity Episcopal School, which opened in 1999 for students in kindergarten through eighth grade.

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Episcopal Church Poised To Have Full-Time Priest
By JANIS D. FROELICH
The Tampa Tribune
September 3, 2007

TAMPA - Georgette Gardner-Johnson likes the coziness of St. Chad's Episcopal Church.

But the educator is part of a growing parish that faces a major change brought on by the doubling of its attendance in the past few years.

'We are willing to go forward,' senior warden Charles Hull said. 'Never in the history of St. Chad's have we had a full-time vicar.'

Historically, St. Chad's is a mission church served by a supply priest.

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Back to school

As school year starts, McGreevey heads to seminary
By ANGELA DELLI SANTI
Newsday
September 1, 2007

TRENTON, N.J. - The nation's first openly gay governor is headed back to school Tuesday _ as a seminary student.

Jim McGreevey will begin full-time studies at General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church in Manhattan, seminary spokesman Bruce Parker confirmed. McGreevey switched his religious affiliation from Roman Catholic to Episcopalian earlier this year and expressed interest in pursuing a call to ministry.

As a student in the non-degree program at the seminary, McGreevey has up to a year to choose a course of study. In the meantime, he can choose a broad array of courses in theology, liturgy, ministry and related topics that are available to students who are unsure of their educational and vocational goals, Parker said.

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Former NJ Governor's Wife Recalls Ordeal
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
September 1, 2007

SPRINGFIELD, N.J. (AP) -- Perhaps no one knows better than Dina Matos McGreevey how Suzanne Craig -- the wife of Idaho Sen. Larry Craig -- felt as her husband insisted he is not gay despite his guilty plea in a police sex sting.

Matos McGreevey once stood shellshocked next to her ex-husband, then-New Jersey Gov. James E. McGreevey, as he announced before TV cameras that he was ''a gay American'' and would resign.

''I was watching his wife the other day standing next to him, and I thought, 'Oh my gosh, that was me three years ago. Now here we go again,''' Matos McGreevey said in an interview at her home Friday evening. ''She's a victim of the choices he's made.''

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A Sting He Didn't Deserve
By Aaron Belkin
September 1, 2007

If Sen. Larry Craig is guilty of a serious crime, you'd never know it from listening to the audiotape of his arrest or from reading his arrest record.
…
Craig's case apparently was handled according to the book. But the use of everyday gestures that fall short of sex to mete out punishment for sexual misconduct illustrates a revealing departure from methods that investigators used to carry out sting operations nearly a century ago. Courts used to require a lot more than the tapping of a toe to sustain a conviction for a morals crime.

In 1919 the Navy hired "decoys" to frequent the lobby of the YMCA in Newport, R.I. Orchestrated by officers at the local Naval Training Station, the cleanup campaign sought to eliminate gay men from the ranks. Following an introduction, decoys would accompany their suspects to a hotel room and then have sex. At least three dozen sailors and civilians were arrested, and many ended up in jail.

According to conventions of the day, if men confined themselves to masculine behaviors and sex roles, they could engage in sex with other men without inviting accusations of being gay. Because perversion was seen primarily as a function of effeminate mannerisms and passive sexual tastes, government decoys could have sex with gay men with impunity as long as they assumed the active position during those encounters. Or so the Navy assumed.

When the 1919 sting operation ensnared a local minister, the Episcopal Church fought back, and what had been a local operation became a national scandal that almost ended the burgeoning political career of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was then assistant secretary of the Navy.

The church persuaded the Navy and the Senate to investigate the sting operation, and when it became apparent that the military had enlisted heterosexuals to engage in sex with other men, there was a public outcry.

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Bishop nixes Trinity Prep play
La Cage Aux Folles, c'est fini
Leslie Postal and Dave Weber
Orlando Sentinel
September 1, 2007

The school theater production aimed to "push the limits," and it did -- way too far for its conservative Episcopal bishop.

Trinity Preparatory School canceled its opening-night performance of La Cage aux Folles on Friday at the request of Bishop John Howe, head of the Diocese of Central Florida.

"His request was not to stage the production, and we decided to honor his request," said Headmaster Craig Maughan, who called off Friday's and tonight's planned performances. "I met with the cast and all the people involved in the production and announced the decision and explained it to them."

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No refunds at St. Alban's

Trustee says school is not offering to return tuition for fall term
By TRACI SHURLEY
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
August 3, 2007

Parents who paid thousands of dollars for their children to attend St. Alban's Episcopal School in Arlington aren't being offered refunds, even though classes for the upcoming year were canceled this week, one trustee said Friday.

The school is expected to file for bankruptcy soon, said Bill Johnston, a parent who has been a member of the school's board since October.

"Nobody's been deceptive or tried to turn the story. It's a small school that depends on tuition from year to year," Johnston said. "There's no backup plan and hasn't been a backup plan. If you don't get enrollment, you don't get enrollment."

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Fort Worth Episcopal school closing

Financial woes close private school St. Alban's
By TRACI SHURLEY
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Aug 2, 2007

ARLINGTON -- St. Alban's Episcopal School, one of Arlington's oldest private schools, is closing because of financial problems, a spokesman for the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth said Wednesday.

It was unclear what steps parents should take or whether their tuition would be refunded.

School officials did not answer calls Wednesday afternoon. Suzanne Gill, communications director for the diocese, said school officials announced the closing to staff on Wednesday and planned to send parents a letter today.

"A school is a very expensive thing to run," Gill said. "I'm sure the administration has done everything they could." The Fort Worth diocese does not oversee the school, but officials at St. Alban's Episcopal Church notified the diocese Wednesday of the closing. The school's board made the decision Tuesday, she said.

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St. Mark's celebrates centennial

Alumni recall school's history, have high hopes for future
By ELIZABETH LANGTON
The Dallas Morning News
April 20, 2007

The St. Mark's School of Texas list of achievers goes on and on.

There's former Dallas Morning News publisher E.M. "Ted" Dealey. Banker R.L. Thornton Jr. Businessman Ray L. Hunt. Musician Steve Miller. Actor Tommy Lee Jones. Developer Ross Perot Jr. Actor Luke Wilson.

And those are just a few of the famous names.

In the past 100 years, thousands of boys have passed through the renowned North Dallas private school and its three predecessor institutions – The Terrill School, Texas Country Day School and Cathedral School for Boys.

St. Mark's commemorates its centennial with events today and Saturday.

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