I grew up in Clio, Michigan north of Flint, the second of four children. Our family had no formal church affiliation. As far back as I can remember, I have displayed what I call “a healthy disrespect” for authority, always questioning “why” or “why not” and “how.”

My wife Carol and I moved to East Lansing around the time I graduated from MSU in 1979. We raised two children in Haslett and now have four grandchildren, all in the Lansing area. Carol and I became UU Lansing members in 2016 and I retired in 2018 after 40 years of State Government service.

I have never been comfortable with religious rules and creeds to follow as a requirement for belonging. Because I have always questioned just about everything, I find UU Lansing to be a fabulous community within which we all question many things. Through all this questioning, I hope to find some answers, or at least to refine my questions.

The Unitarian Universalist Church of Greater Lansing is owned by the Congregation, by its members, by its future members. When I was invited to fill a Board vacancy in January of 2022, I accepted, hoping I might represent UU Lansing’s owners and help turn our congregational values into actions.

I have been a member of UU Lansing since 1995. My wife and I raised our four, now adult, children in the church. I have served in many volunteer roles from building and grounds to the preschool room to covenant group facilitator. I first served on the Board of Trustees in 2018 and was President for the 2019/2020 church year.

I am excited to be part of the Board during this time as we continue to grow and evolve and move towards a shared leadership style of governance. I believe the work we are doing at this time sets UU Lansing up for long-term success. The Board will be able to focus on the church’s meaning, purpose, and impact. The Senior Minister, staff, and volunteers will be able focus on the day-to-day operational decisions of the church.

I look forward to our congregation’s growing connection with the Lansing community as we continue to engage in our courageous work for peace and justice.

I have been a member of UU Lansing for 36 years and have participated in church life and leadership in many ways. Now recently retired, I felt it is time to take on the responsibility of serving on the Board of Trustees.

I see UU Lansing at a watershed moment. We’ve made a strong start on realizing our vision of supporting and serving the South Lansing community–an important impetus for moving to S. Pennsylvania Ave.

At the same time, the COVID pandemic hit us hard, keeping us from gathering in beloved community for so long! Much of our social structure–worship services, religious education classes, committees, and groups–has frayed and we’re having to relearn how to be and do things together. I think this is a time for us to be intentional about rebuilding the programs activities that bring us together. How do we want children, youth and families to participate in church life? How can we reinvigorate small- group ministry? What are other ways we can gather to do the work of the church?

I feel it’s important that we support the UUA through our annual giving and that we continue to participate in national and regional activities. Having members attend GA is an incredibly enriching experience that contributes both to the broader UU movement and our own congregational life. I’d also like to see us doing more connecting with other Michigan UU congregations, for example, through music and youth activities. We’ve done this in the past, but the level has dropped off since COVID.

We have done SO MUCH to reach out to and partner with others since we moved to South Lansing. I hope this trend continues!

I have previously been a member of the board, and I feel that I could be an asset now with the current leadership we have. I would like to see the church live its stated value of providing diversity throughout the church community. I think that we have stated for many years that we want to be a helpful part of our community and I would like the leadership to continue to make those relationships and connections with the whole wider Lansing area. I think it is time to be who we say we want to be, and I am here to support that initiative.

would like to help direct the near future of the church. I know many members of the church are eager to form efficient and effective operations which sustain our mission statements, especially in regards to RE development – where I’ve spent most of my church volunteering time in the recent years. Though our church is about to celebrate a big anniversary, things feel very new. Newish building, newish online presence after the pandemic, newish minister, and new changes for the RE program. Genuinely I think we just have to keep good things going to evolve into a church that feels more consistent. Keep improving on what we’ve accomplished; forming the “more perfect union” as they say. I’d love to see church leadership, as a part of it or not, continue to develop the RE program. According to our church documents it’s one of the four most important driving factors, and certainly I know now it’s the most important to many members. I feel that RE should be a huge outreach and new member onboarding path. In a few years I’d love to see a steady accumulation of new families to our larger church family. The UU denomination of course always needs support, I don’t really know how to get them more funds, but I sure would like to connect and communicate more. Especially with the other nearby UU churches. I liked that Ann Arbor joined our livestream once; what else can we do together, send and receive pilgrims? UU Lansing could have a growing central role for community outreach. I feel like we do great on accomplishing social justice and humanitarian efforts, but maybe not at celebrating those wins or inviting people to celebrate with us.

I grew up in Western New York amongst other Missouri Synod Lutherans. I always had trouble making sense of the trinity and the virgin Mary. So, I pretty much gave up churches after I left home for college and on to my career in academia, landing at MSU to serve as a faculty member in the field of kinesiology.

My spouse, Linda Covey, and I attended a wonderful welcoming Methodist church for 28 years but still had trouble with the creeds and hymns. We walked through the doors of the UU Lansing church in November of 2016 and felt immediately welcomed.

I became a member of UU Lansing in 2017. I accepted an invitation by the Board in January 2020 to serve out a vacancy because I wanted to help serve this congregation--a community in which I felt a deep loving connection and supportive challenge to live the UU principles. I was elected in 2021 to serve on the Board, and then elected by the Board to serve as president of the UU Church of Greater Lansing.

I have been retired from MSU since 2018 and have enjoyed being a part of the Anti-Racist Study group and the chorus group Muusika.

I came to East Lansing after graduating from U of M in Special Education. I was disillusioned with the public schools (it was the ‘70s) so I worked with friends to open a child care center at 855 Grove Street. We rented the first floor and kitchen from the Unitarian Universalist Church. My husband Tim started working there, and that’s where we met. After several years of that work, we both began grad school, bought a house in East Lansing, engaged in our careers, and raised our three children here.

I retired from full time work as a college professor at Lansing Community College and still teach one course a semester in Child Development and Early Education.

I first attended UU Lansing right after 9/11 and joined in 2002. I have served in many roles in that time: serving on the Board in the early 2000s, facilitating covenant groups, being a Coming of Age mentor, and serving on various committees. I was elected to the Board again in 2018 and was President 2020-2021. The work on the Board is challenging but rewarding, especially the detailed work we are doing now as we create and adapt our system of governance. I remain committed and enthusiastic and have developed patience as I learned that there is such a thing as ‘church time,’ which means that everything takes at least twice as long as you anticipated. 😊

I joined the Board at the start of the Covid lockdown. The Board had also recently started its foray into developing a new governance structure for the church based on Policy Governance. It has been a challenging and strange experience, very different from what I had expected.

I decided to run to serve another two years on the Board in order to help during the transition period of rebuilding the church’s vibrant activities post-Covid and to finish the task of developing a new governance structure. As the Board liaison with the Finance Committee, I’ve focused on designing a robust and doable system for governing the church’s finances.

Besides being on the Finance Committee and a member of the Board, I had been an enthusiastic member of the Chalice Choir and the Women’s Chorus (Muusika). I teach and conduct research at MSU but now part-time, so I hope to have more time to devote to both service and fun at the church.

I grew up in Flint, Michigan, the oldest of six in a loving Catholic family. I attended Catholic schools that provided a community where we all knew and cared for one another. Once aware of my own sexual orientation as a lesbian, I no longer felt welcomed by the church proper and stopped attending Mass.

I attended CMU for a few years, worked a number of jobs, received an Associate degree in Applied Technology from LCC, and in 1987 landed a job at the Lansing Board of Water and Light where I worked until 2019.

In the ‘90s, I produced “Our Living Room Concert Series” for local Women artists; co-owned a bookstore, The Real World Emporium; worked on the Lansing Human Rights Ballot Campaign; and was on the Mayoral Advisory Board for LBGTQ.

I met my wife Tracy Ash in 2000 and soon began attending worship with her at UU Lansing. I immediately felt at home. By 2003, I was a member and participating in Circle Suppers and a Covenant Group. I volunteered with Building and Grounds for a handful of years and was then asked to be a Board member. I was on the Board that time around six years.

In 2019, I was asked again to join the Board and am now halfway through my second term. It has been an honor working with incredibly committed, intelligent, and deliberative individuals on this congregation’s behalf. Moving to Shared Governance has been a long road, and we are continuing, one step at a time with integrity and love, to inch ever closer to being the church of our dreams.

As an enthusiastic and dynamic board member, I am driven by a deep commitment to education, spiritual growth, nonprofit management, fund development, relationship building, accessibility, and inclusion. With extensive experience in these areas, I aim to foster an environment where radical candor, as advocated by Kim Scott, is practiced to ensure accountability not only to our community but also to ourselves. This approach helps us build generational justice & wealth that lasts.

I hope to focus on continuing to strengthen our congregation's integration into the city of Lansing, making a significant impact through direct action and advocacy. I aim to nurture and enhance our existing partnerships, create new ones, and thereby enrich the resources available for collectively elevating our community. As we champion justice in Lansing, I am passionate about transforming our spiritual home into a welcoming and safe space for all, providing enriching experiences, and facilitating dialogues that challenge and expand our perspectives.

Together, I believe we can weave a narrative of justice and community growth, ensuring our congregation remains relevant and thrives as a beacon of hope and support in our city.