Saturday, July 24, 2004
An Ohio woman was elected bishop and assigned to Minnesota.
STAFF/WIRE REPORTS
United Methodists in Eastern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania received new bishops last Saturday, when the denomination's five jurisdictions held separate conferences in five different cities.
Bishop John L. Hopkins, 58, will succeed Bishop Jonathan Keaton in the East Ohio Annual Conference, which includes the Youngstown District. North Central Jurisdiction leaders, meeting in Davenport, Iowa, reassigned Bishop Keaton to the Detroit and Western Michigan conferences.
In Western Pennsylvania, the newly elected Bishop Thomas J. Bickerton, 46, of Wheeling, W.Va., will take the helm of the Pittsburgh area Western Pennsylvania Annual Conference. Pennsylvania is in the Northeast Jurisdiction district, which met in Syracuse, N.Y.
The new assignments will take effect Sept. 1. The denomination's jurisdictional leaders meet every four years to elect new bishops and assign new and continuing bishops to the annual conferences within their territory.
East Ohio conference
Bishop Keaton has served eight years with the East Ohio Annual Conference, the maximum allowed, said Dr. Gary Olin, superintendent of the Youngstown District.
The conference, which has offices in North Canton, includes 12 districts containing 825 churches and 185,000 United Methodists. Youngstown, one of those districts, has 58 parishes and more than 19,000 members, Olin said.
Youngstown District members can meet the bishop Oct. 17 at Salem United Methodist Church, Olin said.
Bishop Hopkins has served as a bishop in the Minnesota Area since 1996. He was pastor of Methodist Temple in Evansville, Ind., from 1989 to 1996; was the director of North Indiana Conference Council on Ministries, in Marion, Ind., from 1983 to 1989; and was Campus Minster at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind., from 1979 to 1983. He and his wife, Elain, have three children.
An honors graduate of Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind., Bishop Hopkins received a master's degree in divinity from Yale Divinity School in New Haven, Conn. in 1972. He was ordained a deacon in 1972 and an elder in 1975. He was a chaplain at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medial Center in Hanover, N.H., from 1972 to 1974.
Ohio woman elected
The Rev. Sally Dyck of the East Ohio Conference was one of three new bishops elected to replace retiring bishops. She was assigned as bishop of the Minnesota Annual Conference.
Bishop Dyck, 50, is pastor of Garfield Memorial United Methodist Church in Pepper Pike, Ohio, where she has served since 2003. She was superintendent of the Wooster District in the East Ohio Conference from 1997 to 2003 and earlier served as pastor at Church of the Redeemer, United Methodist in Cleveland Heights and Faith United Methodist Church, Cleveland. Bishop Dyck is married to the Rev. Kenneth P. Ehrman.
Western Pennsylvania
Meanwhile, the Western Pennsylvania Annual Conference will be the first assignment for Bishop Bickerton. He is district superintendent for the Northern District of West Virginia.
Bishop Bickerton is a graduate of West Virginia Wesleyan College, Duke University Divinity School with a master's degree in divinity and the United Theological School. He was ordained a deacon in 1982 and an elder in 1985. He served at Perry Memorial United Methodist Church, Shady Spring, W.Va., from 1983 to 1989; Forrest Burdette Memorial United Methodist Church, Hurricane, W.Va. from 1989 to 1998. He and his wife, Sally, have four children.