Pastor Verna grew up in Trinity Episcopal parish at 26th and Michigan on Chicago's South Side.

She attended Calumet High School,  the University of Illinois in Urbana (B.Ed., Elementary Education 1977),  McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago (M.Div. 1982),  and Northern Illinois University (NIU) at Dekalb (M.Ed., Adult Education 2002).

Pastor Verna was ordained priest while serving as curate at Saints George and Matthias Episcopal Church in the Roseland community on the South Side.  She served as Rector of Holy Cross Episcopal Church in Morgan Park on the South Side for nine years,  and at other Episcopal parishes in the Diocese of Chicago and the Diocese of Hawaii.  Her most recent appointment was as Priest-in-Charge at Grace Episcopal Church in Sterling and St. Luke's in Dixon.

Pastor Verna has combined a couple of other careers with her church ministries,  as teacher at Bethel Lutheran School and Principal at Holy Family Lutheran School on Chicago's West Side,  as US Navy chaplain serving with both Marines and Sailors (at Marine Corps Base Hawaii, and at Great Lakes Naval Training Center),  and as counsellor at NIU in the CHANCE program.

Her husband is an Information Technology manager with a law firm in Chicago.  Their son is in his freshman year at college.

We expect great things when Pastor Verna joins us at St. John's October 1st  2006,  and we suspect she may also be expecting great things of us!

Welcome Pastor Verna, and your family!

(contact information)