The Rev. William J. Skilton, rector of St. Thomas' Church, North Charleston, S.C., since 1988, was elected Suffragan Bishop of South Carolina Oct. 7 in a special diocesan convention. Fr. Skilton, 55, was elected on the fourth ballot.

The bishop-elect is a native of Havana, Cuba, who has spent most of his ordained ministry in South Carolina. After graduating from The Citadel and the University of the South, he was ordained to the diaconate in 1965 and to the priesthood in 1966.

He was vicar of All Saints' Church, La Romana, in the Dominican Republic, from 1965 to 1972, when he became priest-in-charge of Holy Trinity and Cross, Bluffton, S.C.

Fr. Skilton was a canon at the Cathedral of St. Luke and St. Paul, Charleston, 1973-76, and rector of Holy Trinity, Charleston, 1976-85. He returned to the Dominican Republic in 1985 as vicar of Epiphany Church and chaplain at Centro de Estudios Teologicos and at the Convent of the Transfiguration.

Fr. Skilton has been a member of the standing committees of both South Carolina and the Dominican Republic, a deputy to General Convention and a delegate to the Province 4 synod. He and his wife, Lynda, are the parents of two children.

Others who were nominated were the Rev. Edward Little, rector of All Saints', Bakersfield, Calif.; the Rev. Richard Belser, rector of St. Michael's, Charleston; the Rev. Henry N. Parsley, rector of Christ Church, Charlotte, N.C.; and the Rev. Canon Michael T. Malone, canon to the ordinary in South Carolina.