Canon Anderson Appointed to Communication Post
Episcopal News Service. June 12, 1980 [80220]
New York -- The new Executive for Communication of the Episcopal Church is the Rev. Canon Richard J. Anderson, according to an announcement by the Rt. Rev. John M. Allin, Presiding Bishop of the Church.
Canon Anderson has succeeded John C. Goodbody, who held the post from 1971 until his retirement on May 31.
Canon Anderson has been a member of the Episcopal Church Center staff since 1975, first as Associate for Stewardship/Development, and since 1977, as Assistant to the Presiding Bishop.
As Executive for Communication, he is responsible for assisting in the initiation, development and implementation of communication strategy to interpret and support the mission of the Episcopal Church. The Communication Office at the Church Center has six appointed and three support staff members. The staff provides information services through the print and electronic media as well as audio/visual presentations.
In his post as executive assistant to the Presiding Bishop, Canon Anderson has assisted Bishop Allin in schedule planning, correspondence, as a staff person for several committees, as liturgical chaplain. He has been a member of the Administrative Group at the Episcopal Church Center, and has represented the Presiding Bishop on numerous occasions.
Canon Anderson has wide experience in the field of communication. Before joining the Episcopal Church Center staff, he was Assistant to the Bishop of Western New York and served as Communication Officer of that diocese. He was appointed a canon in 1971 by the Bishop of Western New York. He has also held parochial positions in Buffalo, N. Y., Dubuque, Iowa, and Durant, Iowa.
He was a member of the Buffalo Area Council of Churches executive committee and was chairman of its Department of Radio and Television for two years. He conducted a religious program on a Buffalo television station also. For six years he edited Churchfacts, the monthly diocesan newspaper in Western New York, and in 1973 he was editor of The Convention Daily at the Episcopal Church General Convention in Louisville, Ky.
For three years he was a co-opted member of the Executive Council's Program Group on Communication. He was a founding member of the Episcopal Communicators. He has been a member of the board of The Episcopalian, the authorized but independently edited monthly tabloid of the Episcopal Church, since 1974.
Canon Anderson was born in Iowa City, Iowa, in 1934 and is a graduate of San Diego State College and the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley, Calif. In 1969 he was awarded a Masters in Sacred Theology degree from the Dubuque Theological Seminary, and he has studied at Aquinas Institute of Theology and Wartburg Theological Seminary. From 1970 to 1975 he was an instructor in religion at Canisius College, Buffalo.
In the Dioceses of Iowa and Western New York he was active in many areas and served on the Diocesan Council in both dioceses. In Iowa, he was president of the Dubuque Council of Churches and was appointed by Governor Harold Hughes to the Iowa Commission on Employment of the Handicapped.
Canon Anderson is married to Sandra D. Keyes, who is communication officer at First Presbyterian Church in Greenwich, Conn., and who does reporting assignments for The Living Church. They are the parents of two daughters and one son and make their home in Cos Cob, Conn.