Two Dioceses Choose Coadjutors
Episcopal News Service. June 28, 1979 [79210]
NEW YORK -- Two parish priests have been elected bishops coadjutor by special conventions of two Episcopal Church dioceses. A bishop coadjutor is the automatically-designated successor to the diocesan bishop.
In Cincinnati, the Rev. William G. Black, rector of the Church of Our Savior, was elected on the third ballot to become the bishop coadjutor of Southern Ohio. In Upper South Carolina, the convention chose the Ven. William A. Beckham to eventually succeed the Rt. Rev. George M. Alexander.
Archdeacon Beckham, 52, is a native of Columbia, S.C. and has been archdeacon of the diocese for 15 years. He is a graduate of the University of South Carolina and the Virginia Theological School. Bishop Alexander has stated his intention to resign sometime this Fall after the Episcopal Church's General Convention in September.
In Southern Ohio, the Convention made clear its wish to elect a priest from within the Diocese in a departure from the Episcopal elections for nearly the last half century. Fr. Black had been in second place for the first two ballots; trailing the Rev. Robert P. Patterson of Baltimore, Md. Before the third ballot, the two other candidates from within the diocese -- the Rev. Stuart Wood and the Rev. Lorentho Wooden -- withdrew and threw their support to Fr. Black.
The last three bishops -- Bishop Henry Wise Hobson, Bishop Roger W. Blanchard and John M. Krumm -- have all been elected from posts outside Southern Ohio.
Bishop Krumm has stated that he intends to retire in 1981.
The Bishop-elect has served most of his ordained ministry in the diocese. He holds degrees from Greenville (Ill.) College, the University of Illinois and the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, He was a combat officer in the U. S. Army in World War II and an officer with the YMCA after the war.
Both men will be consecrated after the General Convention since the required consents -- of bishops and jurisdictions -- cannot be obtained before that meeting in Denver.