Leadership Gallery

Richard Perry Milas (R.P.M.) Bowden, 1930-2010

Portrait Of R.P.M. Bowden

R.P.M. Bowden, courtesy of Louie Crew Clay.

R.P.M. Bowden was active in the Diocese of Atlanta beginning in the 1950s, serving on the Standing Committee, the Executive Board, chair of the Absalom Jones Student Board, the Human Sexuality Task Force, the Department of Ministry to Higher Education, as lay representative to Partners in Mission, as a Trustee to the University of the South, and in countless other positions as well as being a Lay Eucharistic Minister. He served as a deputy to General Convention nine times and twice as an alternate.

As an active member in the life of The Episcopal Church, Bowden served on the Joint Standing Commission on World Mission, the Council of Advice to the President of the House of Deputies, the State of the Church Committee, the Joint Standing Committee on Nominations, the Committee on HIV/AIDS, the Committee on Anti-Racism, Social Justice Ministries Office, and the Board of the Archives of the Episcopal Church. From 1994 to 2000, he served on the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church and was elected by General Convention to serve another six year term in 2003. Bowden also served on the Board of Directors of the Union of Black Episcopalians and the Episcopal Urban Caucus.

As a professional, he spent forty-one years in the field of education, teaching for twenty-three years and working in administration for eighteen. He served as president of the Georgia Association for Community Education and the National Community Education Association. Bowden was a certified trainer for the Church's Anti-Racism Dialog and the Episcopal Peace Fellowship. He died on October 4, 2010.