firstparishmedfield.org

Rev. Richard Stower

Our minister is the Rev. Richard M. Stower. He was born in New York City in 1946, raised in a Jewish (Reform) family and spent much of his childhood in New Rochelle, NY. He graduated from the George Washington University in 1968 where he majored in history. After teaching a year in the South Bronx, he returned to George Washington University and received a Master of Arts degree in American and Modern European History.

In the 1960s he was active in both the civil rights and the anti-Vietnam war movements. In high school he served on the Youth Taskforce on the National Urban League. In 1990, he escorted two survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on a speaking tour of Massachusetts and New Hampshire high schools. Most recently he has been involved with developing a Scituate public/private response team to help people displaced coastal storms.

Prior to entering the ministry, Rev. Stower worked for the United States Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) for fifteen years in the Food Stamp Program. He has served as president of the local chapters of the American Federation of Government Employees and the National Treasury Employees Union in the Northeast Regional Office of FNS.

In 1986 he entered Harvard Divinity School and received his M. Div degree in 1990. He was ordained in his home church, First Parish in Concord, MA, and has served as part-time minister of the Kearsarge Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in New Hampshire and as the interim minister at the Keene (NH) Unitarian Universalist Church. He has served on the board of directors of the Ballou Channing District of the Unitarian Universalist Association and as President of the Ballou Channing Chapter of the UU Ministers Association. He also served on the board of directors of the Unitarian Universalist Urban Ministry (Boston) from 1994-2008. In 2001, he was appointed by the town selectmen to serve on the Scituate No Place for Hate Committee. Recently, Rev. Stower served as President of the Scituate Clergy Association.

Rev. Stower recently stepped down after a successful nineteen year ministry at the First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church in Scituate, Massachusetts. His history of the 377 year-old Scituate congregation will be published in the fall.

Rev. Stower is married to Nancy Richards-Stower, a civil rights and employment law attorney. They have an adult son, Jonathan, who lives in Brighton, MA.

Shelley Dennis, M.D., Director of Religious Education

Our new DRE, Shelley Dennis, M.D. graduated from the University of
Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine. Shelley is enrolled in
Andover-Newton Theological School where she begins her seminary
education this week. Shelley is a member of the Flagstaff AZ UU
church where she has been involved with religious education for many
years.  You may contact Shelley for more information about religious education at First Parish.

 

Eva Kendrick, Music Director

Eva Kendrick is a composer, vocalist, and the music director at First Parish Medfield. She has written operas, song cycles, a musical, chamber works, choral works, and music for film. Recent venues include the Longy SeptemberFEST concert series, the Ebell of Los Angeles, and Boston's Birth of a Musical Festival. She has taught for Opera Providence's outreach program OPERAtunity and the SMARTS Summer Institute in Attleboro. This fall, she began teaching composition, theory, solfege and voice at the Community Music Center in Boston.

 

For more information about Eva, please check her web site.