Due to the fact that the Episcopal Diocese of Florida’s Annual Diocesan Convention was postponed from January 2023 to November 11, 2023, we were unable to post St. John’s slate of convention delegate nominees. During worship on Sunday, November 12, Fr. Lonnie and our current delegates will share news about the convention, which will have been held the day before. Following this update, we will open voting for our new convention delegates who will attend the 2024 and 2025 Annual Diocesan Conventions.
Below is the slate of parishioners prepared by your vestry nominating committee in the fall of 2022. We appreciate these individuals’ ongoing commitment to St. John’s and the time and talent they share through parish ministry.
Stay tuned! St. John’s will still hold a parish meeting in February to elect new church vestry members, and we will most likely elect additional delegates to attend the 2025 and 2026 Annual Diocesan Conventions. That slate of nominees will be published in December.
CONVENTION DELEGATE VOTING:
This fall, you will be asked to vote for two candidates. The individual who receives the most votes will be our new convention delegate, and the nominee who receives the second most votes will serve as an alternate. ONE BALLOT will be accepted per email address. Remember, only “members in good standing” (see definition below) are invited to vote on this slate.
Online voting has closed.
2023 SLATE OF CANDIDATES:
SARAH MICHAEL ANDERSON
Sarah Michael Anderson has been a member of St. John’s Episcopal Church for 24 years. She was baptized as a baby at the Episcopal Church of the Advent – Tallahassee and her family joined St. John’s shortly after. During her youth, she was extremely involved on a Diocesan level with Camp Weed, New Beginnings, and Happening. Within St. John’s, Sarah Michael has been involved in our youth group, as an acolyte, a Club 45 volunteer, a Sunday School teacher, and a Eucharistic Minister in addition to being a member of the Stewardship Committee (2015) and the Renewal Works Committee (2020). Some of her greatest joy has come from serving on the Rev. Gray Hodsdon’s Discernment Committee (2017), the Same-Gender Marriage Consultation (2019), recently on the Rector Search Committee (2022), and on Sundays as a Verger.
Outside of St. John’s, Sarah Michael works as a Program Coordinator for Florida Virtual Campus and as an Adjunct Professor teaching College Success at Tallahassee Community College. Sarah Michael is the daughter of St. John’s members, Pam and Paul Anderson, and she has three siblings who also attend St. John’s. She and her fiancé, Giuseppe Trupiano, are excited to be married at St. John’s this December.
SUSAN CROSS
Susan Cross was baptized, confirmed, and married in the Diocese of Connecticut and became a member of St John’s on moving to Tallahassee in 1984 with her husband, Tim. They have been choir members since the late 90’s, following their 2 now-grown children who served as choristers from the ages of 6 & 5 till high school graduation. Susan served once as a convention delegate in the early 2000s and was on the vestry 2014-16. Since retirement she has worked at the Lively Café, been a booth chair and a knitwear, marmalade, and bread maker for Market, is on the advisory board for the choir school, and was privileged to visit our companion parish in Cuba in 2019.
She is a retired pediatrician, having practiced full time from 1985-2017, primarily at Tallahassee Pediatrics, also serving as assistant and then Medical Director at Children’s Medical Services for the last several years of her practice life, and teaching both family practice residents and FSU medical students till 2012. She continues to serve on the boards of the Tallahassee Pediatric Foundation and Tallahassee Primary Care Associates. During the pandemic supply shortage 4/2020-6/2021 she made over 2000 masks, most for donation to Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare (TMH), and volunteered with other retired physicians and nurses giving Covid shots at the drive-by vaccination site in the TMH parking lot during the spring of 2021.
Susan is grateful to St John’s for both the inspiration and the opportunities continue to serve.
KEITH KIBBEY
Keith Kibbey grew up at the Episcopal Church of the Ascension, Middletown OH. serving as an acolyte through high school. After marrying and settling in Fort Myers FL, he and his wife Lorna became active members of Saint Joseph’s Episcopal, where he served on the vestry as Secretary, Junior Warden, Senior Warden, and convention delegate. In the early 2000’s St. Joseph’s merged with Lamb of God Lutheran Church forming the second combined Lutheran Episcopal Congregation in the nation, where Keith served on the Board of Trustees.
Keith a retired chemist, is a graduate of the University of South Florida and spent most of his career in environmental laboratory management and automation.
In 2019, Keith and Lorna moved to be close to their daughter Kelly who had relocated to Tallahassee ten years earlier. With Kelly already a member, and being familiar with St John’s from multiple visits over the years they quickly became members. Keith and Lorna now enjoy being able to worship with Kelly, her husband Ryan, and their infant son, Lawrence.
LAUREN SOTO
Lauren Soto has been attending St. John’s since July 2020. Prior to Tallahassee, Lauren was raised in Shreveport, Louisiana, where she was a member of St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral throughout her childhood and young adult life. Since moving to Tallahassee at the height of the pandemic, St. John’s has been a place of comfort and community through an intense period of transition and adjustment.
Music has been an integral part of Lauren’s spiritual life for over 20 years. Lauren is currently a member of the St. John’s choir and enjoys helping the choristers during Sunday worship. She has earned her Gold Award from the Royal School of Church Music (RSCM), which is the highest possible level to achieve. In addition to her musical contribution to St. John’s, Lauren is a member of the Junior League of Tallahassee and has chaired Kids’ Boutique since 2022, which focuses on providing back-to-school clothes and supplies to 250 children in the Big Bend area. She has also assisted the youth at B.E.A.T. Week.
Lauren graduated from Sewanee: The University of the South with a double degree in music and chemistry. During her years at Sewanee, Lauren credits the University Choir and the time she spent worshipping in the chapel as critical to her adult spiritual life and formation. Currently, she loves teaching AP Chemistry, Advanced Honors Chemistry, and Honors Physics at Maclay. Lauren and her husband, Israel, have been married for two and a half years. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, gardening, and traveling.
