Reford Nash:  

[Friend me on Facebook!] So you and I weren't well acquainted in high school? It's understandable! I was a band geek, played in the school orchestra, stood against the wall at dances, studied too much, worked too much, and went to church too much 😉. I was twenty-two and living in the Bay Area before I began to realize I was a human being -- and what might go along with that. Yes, I should add, I immensely enjoyed finding out! And I'm still finding out today. But the fact remains that I was hardly among the popular group in HS. Just the last five years I've begun establishing and re-establishing contact with HS classmates and am enjoying it a lot. I hope I was your friend at USG, back in the day. But, if not, Hi! Let’s finally get better acquainted. My high school was U.S. Grant High School in Oklahoma City. After graduating from USG in 1962, I attended and graduated from: Oklahoma Baptist Univ (B.A., magna cum laude), San Francisco (Presbyterian) Theological Seminary (M.Div., cum laude, sr. Preaching prize), Princeton Theological Seminary (ABD), and McCormick Theological Seminary (D.Min., with special commendation.). I am an ordained Presbyterian minister, and have spent my life serving in church or church-related positions. I retired officially at age 66 -- though, as you will see below, I did not stay idle long! In addition to OK, I have lived in ID, CA, NJ, TX, KS, AZ, and OH -- where I now live. I have been married twice, and have one child from the first marriage and one from the second -- along with a stepchild. My three children live in CA (one in SoCal, one in NorCal), and PA. Our first grandson was born in March, 2008; and our second was born in May 2010 -- both living in Wine Country of CA. We added our first granddaughter, in Philadelphia, in 2013, and a second from the same daughter, in 2015, who also gave us a third grandson in 2017. Over the years, I have traveled in Europe seventeen times, with a heavy concentration of travel in Germany -- though lately exploring Poland twice, and Central Europe in 2019. Consequently, I have come to speak German fairly fluently. I speak some French too, and have toyed with Polish and Italian. I have been able to visit England, Scotland, Wales, France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Finland. I have been to Israel twice -- most recently in 2014, when we spent ten days on a "Holy Land" tour. We enjoyed the history, the Roman ruins, and of course the opportunity literally to "walk where Jesus walked." In 2009, I and my wife Marilyn spent three weeks in Poland. What an unexpected delight! Especially Krakow -- but also Lublin (near which Marilyn's family once lived, and there are still a few relatives there). We returned in the summer of 2016 -- adding Gdansk to our list of cities visited, and finding one of Marilyn's relatives still farming the 200 year old family farm near Lublin. As before, we also went to Krakow, and enjoyed it as much this time as before -- also taking a one day excursion from Krakow to Zakopane, a picturesque resort town in the Tatra Mountains. I have been associate pastor of two Presbyterian churches, and pastor or senior pastor of five Presbyterian churches over the years. My last pastorate before retirement was First Presbyterian Church, Barberton, OH -- a suburb of Akron, which itself is in the "Greater Cleveland area". I retired from full-time ministry in July, 2010. After a year of retirement, I served for a few months as weekend supply pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Mansfield, OH. Then I accepted the position of Interim Pastor at the Milton Presbyterian Church of Rittman, OH -- beginning in October, 2011 and concluding in December, 2012. From October 2013 through August 2020, I served at Goodyear Heights Presbyterian Church in Akron. I began as "Interim Pastor;" but...Expand for more