The Alumni Executive Committee (AEC) awarded the 2020 Distinguished Alumni Award to the Class of 1970 as they celebrated their 50th Reunion Year. Grounded in the formative power of their General Seminary experience, a core group has met annually -- since they came together for their 20th reunion in 1990 -- for retreat, recreation, and celebration. Through their regular meeting they continually renewed one another for ministry.  

“They have modeled being a college of presbyters for the benefit of the Church,” the AEC affirmed in announcing the award, “and being clergy friends for the joy and satisfaction of ministry and the encouragement of faith. Members of the class -- including some with whom they matriculated but graduated in other years, along with many of their spouses -- have provided extraordinary leadership for the Seminary and the Church at large as they have sought to give from what they received at General – grounding in the Catholic faith, in the renewed theology of the 1979 BCP, and in the emerging baptismal ecclesiology that undergirds the mutual ministry movement and a prophetic voice of social justice.”

Presentation and celebration of the award was originally scheduled to take place during the annual Alumni Memorial Eucharist in May, 2020. After pandemic restrictions necessitated cancellation of that event, it was postponed (optimistically) to the Fall of 2020, and then to Commencement week in May, 2021 when the Seminary was joyfully able to welcome a (small) gathering of guests. The Alumni Memorial Eucharist was held May 18, 2021 on the west lawn outside the Chapel of the Good Shepherd and presentation of the award took it’s now customary place during the service. The service was celebrated by AEC President the Rev. Susan Wrathall ’06, with AEC Secretary the Rev. Deacon Denise LaVetty assisting. The Preacher was the Rev. Edward Prevost representing the Class of 1970. The award was presented by the Rev. Deacon Geraldine Swanson ’08, a previous winner and currently member of the Alumni Executive Committee. The award was accepted by the Rev. James Ransom ’70, with classmates Rev. Linwood Garrenton, and Mr. Edward Todd also in attendance.

Prevost began his sermon blithely acknowledging, “that the juxtaposition of the award with the Memorial Eucharist gave it a kind of urgency especially when it was postponed a year.” He went on weaving an uplifting tapestry of reflection on the challenges of ministry during times of “general political and religious turmoil which form a common background” from Jesus’ time “even unto today”. Interweaving the many challenging contexts for the church and ministry from “the destruction of Herod’s temple” to “Viet Nam, Prayer Book Revision, The Pentagon Papers, Watergate, Stonewall, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr. and lots of “sex, drugs, and “Rock and Roll” and finally to “Covid, racism, climate change, the relativity of truth, Fundamentalism, the widening gap between rich and poor” Prevost reminded the assembly that through all times of turmoil Jesus and the love of Jesus was all we needed, “Jesus and the company of all those who are called by his name, and his spirit for the sake of the world he lived and died for and was raised as we shall be.” He called us to remember and celebrate the lives of colleagues, friendship, love, and “the influence of this specific place, The General Theological Seminary and the Chapel of the Good Shephard.”

In presenting the award, Swanson looked back at the turmoil in the “political, social, and economic climate” the class was “about to step into and claim the mantle of ministering to a very divided nation.” She went on to note “those years have not been easy; ordained ministry has changed, evolved and is still morphing,” and lauded the class as “the support you have offered not only to the church at large, but to each other is an inspiration to many in the Church today.”

In accepting the award, Ransom presented the Seminary with a gift from the Class to the Chapel Restoration Fund. Noting the legacy of many generations of alumni bound by the Chapel of the Good Shepherd, Ransom presented the gift “with our sincere prayer that this Holy place may continue to see the birthing of Holy lives, revealing God’s love drenched Glory, and inspiring all of us with the ongoing work of ministry.”

“Your gift is gratefully received,” said Dean Dunkle on behalf of the community, “and it will be used on bricks and fabrics and windows and bells and things that are incarnational. But the real incarnation is in you, in the Class of 1970, in your bodies and in your ministry.” All in attendance nodded in thankful agreement.

Click here to read Edward Prevost’s sermon

Click here to read Geraldine Swanson’s presentation of the Distinguished Alumni Award

Click here to read James Ransom’s presentation of the Class Gift

Enjoy a Slideshow from the Alumni Memorial Eucharist, May 18, 2021: