Notes about people 

by Jerry L. Van Marter

     The Rev. Gary Cook, for the past 11 years the coordinator for the Presbyterian Hunger Program, has been named associate director for global service and witness in the Worldwide Ministries Division in Louisville. He begins his new work June 21.

      Global Service and witness includes five programs with a combined budget of $20 million and 40 staff members. The programs include International Health Ministries, the Jinishian Memorial Program, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, Presbyterian Hunger Program and Self-Development of People. Cook will also have a lead role in convening the Ecumenical Staff Team and staffing the General Assembly’s Committee on Ecumenical Relations.

      Cook served as a pastor in Florida before coming to the Presbyterian Hunger Program.

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      Erma Lawrence, 91, an elder of the Ketchikan Presbyterian Church, was honored last month with a Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the University of  Alaska Southeast.

       A graduate of PC(USA)-related Sheldon Jackson College in Sitka, Lawrence was honored for efforts to preserve the Haida Native-Alaskan language and culture. Alaska Presbytery executive Jay Olson said, “We join with the University and statewide communities in celebration of her invaluable contributions  and ask God's blessing on her for years to come.”

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      The Episcopal Church has named Robert Williams, director of communications for the Diocese of Los Angeles as the new director of Episcopal News Service. He begins his new work July 1, succeeding Jim Solheim, who retired earlier this year after directing the news service since 1989.

      Williams joined the diocese’s communications staff in 1986. Last year, he edited the daily newspaper of the church’s General Convention in Minneapolis, and in 1998 he edited the daily newspaper of the Lambeth Conference, which brings together Anglican bishops from around the world every 10 years.

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      Beatriz Melano Couch, one of Latin America’s first liberation theologians and a lifelong human rights activist in that troubled region, died May 22 in Montevideo, Uruguay. She was a Presbyterian Church (USA) mission worker from 1990 to 1997 as professor of theology at Instituto Superior Evangelico de Estudio in Argentina.

      According to Benjamin Gutierrez, former area coordinator for South America in the Worldwide Ministries Division, Couch was one of the first women in Latin America to earn a doctorate and “was a pioneer in analyzing the role of women in the church there.” Her 1973 book, La Mujer y la Iglesia (“The Woman and the Church”), was widely read throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. She wrote two other influential books and many articles.