Interim Administrator Melinda Ewen Becomes Permanent as of March 1

At its February14 meeting the church Board voted unanimously to endorse the unanimous recommendationof the Personnel Committee by selecting Melinda Ewen as the church administrator.

Melinda says that in many ways she has been preparing to serve our congregationas administrator for years. She discovered Unitarian Universalism during graduateschool at Purdue University where she attended the UU Fellowship of West Lafayette,IN, and then first participated in UU leadership when she was nominated to besecretary to a forming congregation, UU Church of Indianapolis. During thoseyears, her newcomer's interest in and study of our denomination meshed wellwith the lessons she learned about the democratic process.

After moving to Muncie, IN, Melinda did a 17-year tour of many volunteer opportunities,including RE, membership, social committees, and a variety of board positionsincluding two years as president. When she moved to California she interviewedfor administrator positions at both Neighborhood Church in Pasadena and FirstChurch in San Diego, but lost out to internal candidates both times.

When asked by our Search Committee why she wanted the position at UUCCSM, Melindaremarked quickly that she considered it a "dream job" - to be able to contributeher talents to a mission and community she loves.

We Will Celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Our Calling Ernie Pipes as Minister

Ernest D. Pipes, Jr., retired as our church's minister in1991, after havingserved us for 35 years. Since then he's been Minister Emeritus, pinch-hittingand providing continued guidance and institutional memory. On Sunday, March12, we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of our calling him to Santa Monica,with Ernie giving the sermon at both services under the title "Thanks for theMemories."

Ernie came at a critical time, after the congregation had split on the issueof a Cold War-era loyalty oath. After the then-minister, Howard Matson, resignedand only about 100 members stayed with the church, board member Angie Forbesrecruited Ernie for a "healing ministry," a challenge perfectly suited to Ernieand his wife, Maggie. The congregation stabilized, gradually grew, and evolvedthroughout the turbulent 1960s, transitional 1970s, and precarious 1980s.

Reaching the age of 65 and having raised three children, Ernie and Maggie begana well-deserved retirement. Their journey has been long and enriching, includingextensive travel and social action.

Ernie, a native of Texas, first majored in chemical engineering at Rice University.After service in the navy in World War II, he enrolled at Trinity University,majoring in philosophy and social science. He graduated in 1949 and marriedMargaret Copeland the same year.

They went to Cambridge, MA, where Ernie studied philosophy at Harvard. He transferredto the Harvard Divinity School and graduated in 1952. His first call (the formalinvitation from a congregation) was to Albany, NY, where the winter weatherwas shockingly cold. When the persuasive Angie Forbes traveled to Albany torecruit Ernie, the lure of sunshine, a booming local economy, and a small congregationwas enticing. Ernie and Maggie with two young children took a calculated riskand, this 50-year relationship between a congregation and its minister has beenone of unsurpassed loyalty and affection.

Fifty years later, "Thanks for the Memories" will be the perfect theme on March12.

- Rob Briner, Historian-archivist

It's a Big Year for John Agnew with Two Prestigious Awards

John Agnew, professor of geography at UCLA and a member of our church, willreceive the highest award in his field, the Distinguished Scholarship Awardfor 2006, from the Association of American Geographers at its annual meetingin Chicago on March 11.

The association has a membership of about 7,000 in the U.S. and around theworld. Members are primarily academics, but there are also government employeesand people who work for private businesses, particularly in computer mapping,environmental consulting, and industrial location.

The citation for his Distinguished Service Award reads, "Professor John Agnew,University of California, Los Angeles, is one of the preeminent political geographersin the world today. His research record is among the most distinguished in politicalgeography. He has written or co-edited 21 books or monographs and more than130 research articles, notes, commentaries and other contributions to the field.His principal research contribution has been to illuminate the broad contoursof contemporary geographies of globalization, nationalism, and place. His bookon Italian politics, for example, is a tour de force in making a powerful casefor understanding the modern 'state' from a geographical perspective. But he,more than any other scholar, has shown himself to be broad in scope and scale,showing how globalization, nationalism, and place must be reciprocally tiedtogether in any comprehensive understanding of politics today."

As if that weren't enough, John has received another honor. His most recentbook, "Hegemony,"(Temple University Press) was given the "Outstanding Academic Title Award for2005" by "Choice," the monthly magazine of book reviews published by the AmericanLibrary Association. The editors of the magazine reserve the award for a veryfew of the thousands of books that they review every year. Explains John, "Theidea is to identify the books that they think every library should buy." ThePreface and Chapter 1 of "Hegemony" can be read on the Temple University Presswebsite, http://www.temple.edu/tempress.

According to the website, "Hegemony" tells the story of the drive to createconsumer capitalism abroad through political pressure and the promise of goodsfor mass consumption. It explains that the primary goal of the foreign and economicpolicies of the U.S. is a world that increasingly reflects the American wayof doing business. "The thesis of the book is that 'globalization' - the reductionof the importance of geographical distance for many economic transactions andthe spread of common cultural messages (in other words, the 'shrinking' of theworld) is rooted in the projection into the world-atlarge of the U.S. historicalexperience of settling North America and establishing the first large-scale'marketplace society,'" says John. "The trend is from a world organized primarilywith reference to territorial states to an increasingly complex geographic mosaicof localities, global city-regions, and trading blocs connected by networksof flows of goods, people, capital and messages."

Born in a village in northwest England, John was educated in England at theUniversities of Exeter and of Liverpool. He received both his MA and PhD ingeography from Ohio State University in Columbus. He has lived in Westlake Villagesince coming to UCLA in 1996. He has two daughters, Katie and Christine. Katiehas just passed the California Bar after attending UC Santa Barbara and WhittierLaw School. Christine, who is a church member, graduated from UC Irvine andis working for Amgen. She is applying to schools of public health to pursuea master's degree in international health and later hopes to enter the PeaceCorps.

John's partner, Felicity Nussbaum, teaches English at UCLA and is also a memberof our church. John, who joined the church in 2000, is on the Bylaws and PoliciesCommittee.

Does he have any hobbies and special interests? "Apart from work, commuting,and reading, I like hiking, traveling, and eating out." His favorite restaurant?"Rocca in Santa Monica."

- Paula Bernstein