GA08113

Her grandfather started YADs

By Janet Tuck

Kelly Stephens, a youth advisory delegate from the Presbytery of West Virginia, attended Thursday morning’s business meeting. Photo by Joseph Williams

SAN JOSE, June 26, 2008 — Kelly Stephens, of Lewisburg, W.V., found the youth advisory delegate (YAD) experience overwhelming at first: too much information, too many people and too many meetings in a strange place with people she didn’t know. But on one count she had an advantage: her late grandfather, the Rev. Orville E. “Chad” Chadsey, initiated the YAD program.

From 1960-1970 Chadsey worked in Philadelphia in the Witherspoon building for the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America in the areas of junior high and senior high youth. Along with Frank Gillespie, Dale Brubaker, Fritz Messinger and T. Royal Scott, Chadsey worked to develop the YAD program.

More than thirty years later, Chadsey’s granddaughter is contributing to the General Assembly as a YAD. Stephens, a rising junior at High Point University in North Carolina, is a psychology major.

“When I found out I was a YAD I called my whole family, and my grandmother told me about my grandfather’s involvement,” said Stephens. Barbara Chadsey, Stephens’ grandmother, recalled Chad Chadsey’s enthusiasm for youth.

“This was during a time when the youth of the country felt they had a right to contribute. Chad found they had important things to contribute. He found them knowledgeable and serious about working hard at the Assembly,” said Barbara Chadsey.

As for Stephens, she is working hard, making her own contributions at this 218th General Assembly. She is also grateful for the special connection she has with the YAD program and proud of her grandfather. “It was the high point of his ministry,” she said with a smile.