The Vestry Nominating Committee is pleased to announce the following Parishioners have been nominated to fill the open positions on the Vestry in 2008. The Nominating Committee is very pleased that Clinton Anderson and Matt Cloninger have agreed to be nominated and, if elected at the Parish's Annual Meeting to be held on Sunday, March 1, serve a three-year term on the Vestry. Please congratulate them on their nominations and plan to attend the Annual Meeting.

--The Nominating Committee: Michael Mattmiller (Chair), Jessie Brewster, Barbara Hays, Jon Radulovic

Clinton Anderson

I was born in Foley, Alabama in 1952 and grew up with my parents and three siblings—two brothers and one sister, all older—in Bon Secour, Alabama, a fishing community on the southeast corner of Mobile Bay. A cradle Episcopalian, participation in the life of St. Peter’s Church was central to my life until I graduated from high school in 1971, went off to college in Birmingham, Alabama, to graduate school in Massachusetts in 1975, where I came out as a gay man, lost my father to cancer, and initiated my relationship with my domestic partner, Joe Martin, and, eventually, to DC, where I have worked on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender concerns for the American Psychological Association for 21 years. During this period, I left the church, because I thought of myself as a materialist and atheist and because I did not believe I could be in integrity in the church.

That changed when Jim Holmes was called to be the Rector of St. Thomas’. Realizing that this diocese had allowed a parish to call an openly gay man and to allow him and his partner to occupy the rectory, I decided that I could be in integrity in the church here. That was around 1994. Since then I have found my connection to God, to my religion, and to St. Thomas’ growing continually. I took over the care of the garden not long after I joined St. Thomas’ and carried out a little study of the Vestry’s attitudes toward the park that was the first step in the park renovation. I have been regular in my attendance and my pledging, but when I started back to graduate school to complete the unfinished business of getting a PhD in psychology I cut back substantially on my involvement. I completed that process in December 2006 and joined the Pastoral Care Committee as co-chair in mid-2007. I co-chaired the building discernment process that we engaged in over the spring and summer last year. So I am keenly aware of the issues confronting the parish and feel the appropriate amount of apprehension and hope in anticipation of taking a leadership role in our response to those issues.

Matt Cloninger

Formerly from Dallas, Texas, Matt Cloninger has been a member of the St. Thomas community for nearly 3 1/2 years. The son of a pentecostal minister, I have been active in the church since the age of 16 as a teacher, administrator, deacon, treasurer, children's pastor, music director and special speaker.

I achieved a M.A. in Government/Public Policy and a second M.A. in Practical Theology from Regent University prior to moving to Washington D.C. Over the past 13 years I have worked in a number of positions both government and private sector. Currently I work for Booz Allen Hamilton as a consultant and acquisitions lead on a Marine Corps contract.