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CHALICE LIGHTERS
Learn about PNWD's Chalice Lighter Program and how your congregation can qualify for a grant to help you grow
Sign up to become a PNWD Chalice Lighter and help strengthen Unitarian Universalism in the Pacific Northwest - it's easy!
Chalice Lighter Call Schedule 2011/12
Call #1: Community UU Church, Pasco, WA $14,306.40 grant awarded to Pasco. Call #2: The UU Church in Eugene, OR
$19,682.10 grant awarded to Eugene. Call #3: UU Church of the Palouse, Moscow, ID
Call sent week of Apr. 23; open through June 18.
NOTICES
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In the Beginning Diane Brinson, District Administrator
1962. Johnny Carson took over TheTonight Show chair, Seattle hosted a World’s Fair, the top news program was NBC’s fifteen-minute Huntley-Brinkley Report, and the Pacific Northwest District of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations was born.
Sixty congregations across Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, British Columbia, and Missoula, Montana evolved as a new organization. A board of directors was formed, bylaws created and staff gathered. On November 3, 1962, seven months after the constituting convention, six board members signed the Articles of Incorporation establishing the district. Four days later it was made official by the Secretary of State (WA).
The Rev. Peter Raible (left) was responsible for the over-all operation as District Executive. The Rev. Robert Fulghum (right) traveled the district as Fellowship Consultant, meeting with members in their home congregations. And   Religious Education Consultant Eleanor Hunting (left) helped churches develop their religious education programs. These three staff members each worked one-third time for the new district. The only full-time employee, administrative assistant Marge Lueders (right), ran the daily workings of the district from an office space provided by Seattle’s University Unitarian Church.
In February 1963, 165 attendees from thirty-four congregations gathered for the inaugural PNWD Annual Meeting. Maybelle Chapman, first PNWD president, recalled on the occasion of PNWD’s twenty-fifth anniversary:
”There was a special reason why the very first District Annual Meeting was held at the Atkinson Memorial Church in Oregon City. This church was an historic Congregational Church which had chosen to remain an independent Congregational Church and to affiliate with the Unitarian Universalist Association rather than becoming part of the United Church of Christ […] It was very important that we get to know each other and to work together as part of our newly-formed Pacific Northwest District.”
On the same occasion, she shared this quote from the Rev. Carl Nelson, minister of the Eugene, Oregon church:
“The sense of the meeting was one of optimism, enthusiasm, vitalizing vim and burgeoning brawn. It is entirely possible that in the Northwest will develop the major impetus for a free democratic and natural way of life. It could well be that we are at the grass roots of a liberal development in religion that will influence the course of democracy in this country.
 In 1989, newly elected president, Carl Clapp, recalled attending the 1963 meeting, and many since:
“Something seems to catch fire at those meetings which sends us home with enthusiasm to work in our own society and our area council for another year.” Just this past month Carl reflected: “When the PNWD was in its first year of organizing the myriad societies of this vast space, the over-all feeling for all of us was of a new adventure just on the edge of greatness with renewed enthusiasm and zeal for what has become a home for so many liberal religious people all through the Northwest. The new dream of building societies for future UUs came true and we are proud to have been a part of the building blocks set in place fifty years ago.“
Here we are, fifty years later, with fifty-nine congregations across western Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. Twenty-four Annual Meetings have been held in Washington, thirteen in Oregon, nine in British Columbia, three in Idaho, and the first soon-to-convene in Alaska. Five Annual Meetings have topped 500 in attendance. Elton Hall is serving as our twenty-seventh president. The Space Needle still stands, The Tonight Show - sans Carson - still airs, we have a twenty-four-hour news network, and our district thrives.
I hope you will take some time to click on the link below to see our anniversary page. You will find thoughtful greetings and reminiscences from long-time district leaders, that speak to PNWD pride, innovation and collegiality.
And shall I plant a little background music in your head as you read? The 1962 record of the year was Moon River.
Click here to see PNWD 50th Anniversary recollections, greetings, photos, and other hidden treasures.
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