Lewis Ministerial Internship
Committee Members

Scot (Chair)
I joined First Unitarian in the fall of 1989 as a disillusioned Disciple of Christ who had long shied away from any church affiliation. The birth of my first child and a growing yearning for spiritual reflection in my life led me to join the denomination in which my wife, Joanne, was raised.

I soon realized that First Unitarian's unique blend of tradition with the freedom to pursue an individual search for spiritual identity was a good fit. An integral and rewarding part of my experience here has been involvement in many aspects of the congregation. I served on the church board for three years and was the chair of the ministerial search committee. I was active with the memorial garden committee and assisted in the beginning stages of the activities that resulted in the capital campaign and the construction of our new building. Professionally, I am an attorney specializing in trusts, estate planning, and transfer tax. My main hobby is tending to my perennial garden.

Joan
Although I have been a member of First Church for 28 years, it is only in the last eight to nine years that I have been active in the life of the church. It has been a rewarding time. I was a member of the Board of Trustees and also the chair of the program council. During that time, I headed up the interim minister search and was the leader for one of our service projects at St. Martha's Hall—a shelter for battered women.

Professionally, I taught high school English for 10 years (in the distant past) and have been a clinical social worker in private practice for the last 26 years. It is work that I truly enjoy, and I feel lucky to have the opportunity to practice.

Personally, I have been married to the same person, Charlie, for 35 years and we have a daughter, who is also a member of First Church. She is 32 years old and was married (to a Catholic) on June 5, 2004. Our pooch, Jenny, is the final member of our clan.

Gary
Gary and his wife, Jeanie, joined the church in 2002. Since then, he has co-chaired the hospitality committee, presented a summer sermon in 2003, been the member of the canvass committee chosen to write and deliver the pre-celebration Sunday address, sung bass in the choir, and belonged to the intern committee, the program council, and the men's group.

Gary and Jeanie, a reading specialist in primary education, have been married 37 years. They have two grown children, both of whom have trained and pursued professional work in the theatre. The entire Robertson clan loves movies and worships collies.

For the professional stage, Gary has directed a variety of original and classic plays and musicals for productions in New York, London, and several regional theatres. He served as a high-profile artistic director in regional theatre, as well as associate professor of theatre and member of the Honors faculty at the University of Alabama Birmingham. He trained professional actors in New York for 13 years and taught and coached in the graduate training program of Ohio University. He has held professional memberships in the Society of Stage Directors & Choreographers and The Dramatists Guild, and he was invited to join the American Society of Arts & Letters. He felt particularly privileged to have his original play, NeverNeverland, selected for production by Britain's Royal Family for their prestigious American Festival in London. He has authored a stage adaptation of Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, and he recently completed his first novel, Mystery and Melancholy of a Street. He now teaches privately and is working on his second novel.

Gary's educational background includes a Master of Fine Arts degree in professional stage direction from Ohio University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Southeast Missouri State University.

According to Suzanne, his key role on the Lewis Ministerial Intern Committee is to use his breadth of experience in speech and performance to provide insights, training, and guidance in the preparation and delivery of a successful sermon.

Susan
As a landscape architect and conservationist, I focus much of my civic involvement on the protection of our water resources and public awareness of our native flora. I am an emeritus Commissioner of Tower Grove Park, one of St. Louis' treasures, and I serve on the board of Audubon Missouri.

Warren, my husband for 45 years, and I enjoy the outdoors in many ways: hiking, biking, tennis, nature walks and, for my part, gardening. Our three grown children have married and moved away from St. Louis. We all get together in midcoast Maine in the summer. It is a great place to spend time with our grandchildren, now numbering seven.

Our middle daughter, Sarah, is the minister of the Unitarian Society of Ridgewood, N.J. She graduated from Starr King about 12 years ago. It was Sarah who introduced me to the Unitarian Church. I had been raised an Episcopalian.

I have been a member of the First Unitarian Church for about 14 years. During this time I have served on the Board of Trustees, and on the facilities committee as head of the grounds. The intern committee interests me both because I'm a parent of one who has made a career of ministry and because I would like to help make the experience a positive one for our interns.

Charles
I am 72 years old and have been a member of First Church for 26 years and a Unitarian for 41. My wife, Kimberly, is also a 26-year member. We met in the choir and were married by Earl Holt 18 years ago. I have three grown children from a prior marriage and three grandchildren. I have had Parkinson's disease for 11 years. My proudest participation in the church was as chair of the organ committee for four and a half years, leading to the new organ in 1991.

My earliest known ancestor is believed to have come west with Daniel Boone and settled on the frontier in southwest Missouri. The property was part of the location of the Battle of Wilson's Creek, August 10, 1861, one of the largest Civil War battles west of the Mississippi and the site of the death of Gen. Nathaniel Lyon. My middle name, "Benton," was long a family tradition, in honor of one of Missouri's first two senators (1821), Sen. Thomas Hart Benton (no relation). My father was the oldest of eight children and the only one to go to college.

I was an M.D. and professor of surgery at Washington University Medical Center for nearly 30 years and helped develop the specialty field of pediatric urology.

My intended purpose on the intern committee is to help you in any way I can, without being oppressive, to have a rewarding year toward reaching your fulfillment.

Nancy
I was reared in a hellfire-and-brimstone family in the Midwest, where my father was a Southern Baptist preacher and executive, and my mother was an elementary-school teacher. We lived in California (Mo.), El Reno (Okla.) and Oklahoma City, Wichita, Carbondale (Ill.), and Jefferson City (Mo.).

After I earned a music degree in piano from the University of Missouri in Columbia (UMC), I lived briefly on Long Island, where I taught vocal music in elementary school, then returned to UMC, from which I earned a journalism degree.

After graduation, I worked at KETC, the public television station in St. Louis, during which time I, serendipitously, found myself attending a service at First Unitarian. It was love at first sight or maybe I should say at first sound of "Morning Has Broken."

After attending the church for about three years, I decided to join—a big step for me.

It was one of the best decisions I've ever made. Since that time, about 24 years ago, I've sung in the choir, been on the music committee and membership committee, been president of the board (several years ago), and now am on the internship committee.

Professionally, I'm an editor and writer for Washington University, in charge of the annual report, sections of the University magazine, a newsletter for alumni and friends in Asia, and various publications for parents.

Lois
A very fundamentalist background resulted in my being unchurched from the time of going away to college to 1983 (37 years). Friends who came from Presbyterians of many generations brought me to First Church one Sunday morning. They thought I wouldn't take to the trinity but that I needed a church community. I joined the church shortly afterward, and my first activity was to take minutes of the program council meetings.

I also served one three-year term on the Board, and was a member and chair of the Lewis Ministerial Intern Committee when the church first began to have interns. Later, with the origin of the Regional Subcommittees on Candidacy (RSCC), I served in the Midwest area for several years.

When the John Learned Bookshop was moved, I helped to clean and organize the books, and thus became co-chair of that committee. I have just completed two years as co-chair of the program committee for the Women's Alliance, am finishing the second year of a board term and am co-chair of the program council.

After undergraduate college I earned an M.A. degree in psychology and taught for five years in a small college. Preferring clinical work, I came to St. Louis, first working in mental health clinics, and then in an inpatient children's psychiatric unit in Jewish Hospital and for Washington University Medical School in child psychiatry, while completing a Ph.D. degree and starting a private practice. The practice continued for 25 years.

I live alone most of the time, but often with nieces or nephews (grandnieces and grandnephews now) and/or students. As with many retirees, I wonder how I ever had time to work.

Mike
I grew up in Fairfield, N.J., a suburb about 25 miles west of New York City. After high school, I went to Kalamazoo College in Michigan, where I majored in math and physics and from which I graduated in 2002. I currently teach high school math at Lovejoy School in Brooklyn, Ill., and am working on a chemistry certification. I married Anne Hinz (whom I met at college) on July 5, 2003, in her hometown of White Bear Lake, Minn. Anne was accepted into Washington University Medical School, and we moved here the summer of 2003. My interests outside of work include running, music, science-fiction and fantasy books, and baseball.

I was born and reared Catholic in a rather conservative congregation in New Jersey. Around my junior year of high school I rebelled in typical teenage fashion and became an atheist. During college I started moving toward religious thought again: I took a wonderful Old Testament class and began to reconsider the religion of my youth. After graduation, I wandered into a Unitarian Universalist Church, liked what I saw and heard, and decided to stay. After moving to St. Louis, I repeated the process and wound up at First Church and became a member in 2004. Now I would describe myself as a Unitarian Christian, and my favorite theological author is Marcus Borg.

First Unitarian Church of St. Louis | 5007 Waterman Boulevard | St. Louis, Missouri 63108 | 314-361-0595

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