Marshall Dunn (1965), Board Member of Higher Education and Leadership Ministries (HELM), recently agreed to chair the Strategic Planning Committee to look five years into HELM'S future. Clark Gilpin (1970) and JoAnne Kagiwada (trustee) will serve on the committee. Marshall is also still directing Young Adult Conference and is chaplain for senior high church camp for the Capital Area. He started his camp counseling career with Bill Crowl (1962) while at DDH nearly fifty years ago and is still going strong!

Frank Burch Brown (1974) is teaching "Aesthetics of Forgiveness: Imagining Forgiveness Artistically" at the Divinity School during spring quarter 2011. The course "examines artistic works in which aesthetic and ethical tension, and any sense of possible resolution, involves questions or confusions regarding exactly who is needing to extend forgiveness, or why, or to whom." It is the third of a series of courses he has taught as the Alexander Campbell Visiting Professor.

Patty and Bill Crowl (1962) are the proud grandparents of Erica Maren Rode, born to daughter Deborah and son-in-law John at 11:22 am on March 24 in Colorado. They report that Erica is "adorable and beautiful," and her big brother Matt is "a gem."

Marvin E. Smith (1939; Honorary Trustee for Life), former President of the Board of Trustees and Acting Dean of the Disciples Divinity House from 1975-77, died March 11, 2011, in Gainesville, Florida. He was a long-time vice-president of Christian Board of Publication responsible for church school materials. He and his wife, Grady, were active members of Union Avenue Christian Church in St. Louis. Since his wife's death, he has lived with his daughter, Emily Schwartz, in Gainesville. He died of a massive heart attack; he had gone to his volunteer work at 10:00 am, collapsed, was taken to the hospital, and died about noon. The funeral service was held at Carlock Christian Church (near Bloomington, Illinois) on March 20. Sam Pearson (1951) officiated; Katherine Kinnamon (1977) and Kris Culp (1982) participated in the service. Marvin and Grady spent their early retirement years in Carlock, where they maintained the family farm. (More here.)

William Wright (1995), Assistant Professor of Religion, Eureka College, presented "A Thought Experiment on God and Being," on March 22 as part of Eureka's Clarence R. Noe Dean's Lecture Series.

Holly McKissick (trustee) is the author of Fellowship of Prayer, lenten meditations published by the Chalice Press for 2011. She is the senior and founding minister of Saint Andrew Christian Church, Olathe, Kansas.

Congratulations to Bonnie Carenen (2005) and Irami Osei-Frimpong, who married on March 4, 2011, in Indonesia. Bonnie works with Church World Service in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Congratulations to Beau Underwood (2006), who is the new Partnership and Outreach Coordinator for Faith in Public Life in Washington, DC. FPL is a strategy center advancing faith in the public square as a positive and unifying force for justice, compassion and the common good. Beau will be working with FPL's partner organizations to raise public awareness about the relationship between religious beliefs and public policy.  

Floyd Knight (1985) has been awarded the Carter G. Woodson Fellowship for his PhD work in Linguistics at Northern Illinois University. The award is for two years, 2010-12. Congratulations!

Congratulations to Richard N. Johnson (1959) and Virginia B. Johnson, who celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary on February 16. Dick and Ginny met and married at the Graduate School of Ecumenical Studies, Chateau de Bossey, Switzerland, which Dick attended on a Traveling Fellowship from Disciples Divinity House. They add, "As Diane Sawyer says her father put it, 'If you find love in your life, you have won the lottery!'"