Mabel Minns Griffith

We recognize Mabel Minns Griffith for her ecumenical service to the greater Wheeling Area and West Virginia as executive secretary of the Wheeling Council of Churches, 1975-1990. After her retirement she has continued to be involved in Church Women United and her local congregation, Christ United Methodist Church of Wheeling.

While executive secretary, Mabel organized many programs and campaigns including: Sunday Vespers at Oglebay Park, the effort to stop legalized gambling in West Virginia, the settlement of 20 refugees from Vietnam, and ecumenical participation in the annual Martin Luther King Day and the Billy Graham crusades.

The chaplaincy program at Wheeling Hospitals, the Soup Kitchen, Hymn-sing in the Park, and ecumenical services for Easter and Thanksgiving began during her time of service. She coordinated Church Women United, which remains strong and had 19 denominations represented at its recent September meeting.

Mabel has served on the United Methodist Christian Unity in Inter-religious Concerns Committee. Her vision of Christian unity meant the scope of the Council's program added to the understanding of what Christian unity is all about. She felt the Council stood at the crossroads of all the diverse denominational roads, blending them into "the body of Christ" as Jesus instructed.

Born of blind parents, Mabel Minns Griffith has written of her childhood and her life experiences in her book, Happiness Through Struggle, The Life Experiences of a Sightless Couple (self published, 1996).

Mildred Keppel, member of First Christian Church, Wheeling, nominated Mabel for the award, and retired chaplain, the Reverend Charles Ellwood, West Liberty College, introduced her at the 125th Assembly.

The Reverend Dr. Bonnie Thurston

Students at Wheeling Jesuit University, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary or Emmanuel School of Religion in Johnson City, Tennessee, where she was visiting professor of Christian Spirituality, have often have called her Dr. Thurston. To most people in West Virginia, where she was raised, has pastored, taught, attended college and lived most of her life, she is Bonnie Bowman Thurston. Being raised a Disciple of Christ, where she holds her ordination as a Christian minister, on her journey she also has held membership in a local Episcopal parish. Her ecumenical life has taken her to both Roman Catholic and Presbyterian teaching assignments.

In 2004, when the National Cathedral of the Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. looked for an ecumenical speaker, they selected Bonnie as keynote preacher for West Virginia Day. She addressed the gathering from the historic Canterbury Pulpit, where the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his last Sunday sermon on March 31, 1968.

As a popular retreat leader on spiritual life, Bonnie co-led a retreat in England with the head of the Anglican Church, the Right Reverend Dr. Rowan Williams, the most senior bishop in the established church in England and the spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion around the world. While in demand world over, she still finds time to offer retreats in West Virginia and surrounding states. Her spiritual gifts are nurtured in part do to her commitment to a partially cloistered life style

A graduate of Bethany College who married her former professor, Dr. Burton Thurston (deceased), Bonnie has published several books including The Widows: A Women's Ministry in the Early Church, 1989, Spiritual Life in the Early Church: the Witness of Acts and Ephesians, 1993, and Preaching Mark, 2002 (all Fortress Press).

History of the Mary Virginia De Roo award

The Mary Virginia De Roo Ecumenical Service Award was established three years by the Board of Directors of the West Virginia Council of Churches to recognize ecumenists in West Virginia for their commitment and service to ecumenism. The award was named after its first recipient, Mary Virginia DeRoo, who has served the Council for more than 25 years in various leadership capacities. She remains on the staff as volunteer extraordinaire. "Mary V" is a Roman Catholic lay woman. She has served within her diocese in many capacities, including her role with Roman Catholics and WVCC in creating mentoring programs in prison ministry. She has served as president of the Council and interim executive director. She is related to Bishop Remey DeRoo, one of the last North American bishops to be active in Vatican II. WVCC hosted Bishop DeRoo last summer when he lectured on ecumenism and the Vatican II Council. For Mary Virginia's work she has never taken a dime, so the board decided to name the ecumenical award after her, and that she would be the first (2003) recipient. The second (2004) recipient was Bishop Bill Grove, whose ecumenical career is distinguished. He accepted the award at our 2004 Assembly from Bishop Bernard Schmitt and The Reverend Dr. Bill Allen.