2025 Vestry Candidates

Grace Ayscue

Grace Ayscue (b. 1960) and her husband John Taylor have been attending services at St. Thomas à Becket Church since the fall of 2002, shortly after they moved to Morgantown. Grace is originally from Charlotte, NC; her family was active at Christ Episcopal Church, where she sang in the children’s choir and was confirmed at age 12.  After some wandering through various other churches as a teenager, and a period of not attending any church, she returned to worship in the Episcopal church in her mid-twenties. Grace’s education includes high school at West Charlotte HS; studying Philosophy (AB) and Religion (MA) at Princeton University; medical school at UNC-Chapel Hill; and Family Practice residency at Duke University. She lived and taught in Taiwan for two years in the early 1980’s. Grace and John’s sons Ben (28) and Joseph (22), who grew us attending Sunday School and services at St. Thomas, were homeschooled for about eight years each. Grace both taught them and took leadership and support roles in many of their extracurricular activities. At St. Thomas à Becket Church, Grace has taught Sunday School, helped with Special Events, served as a Lay Reader and Eucharistic Minister, and served on the Outreach Committee (current chair) and two terms on the Vestry.  Other current activities include a Book Club with other former homeschooling mothers, duet piano lessons, delivering for Meals on Wheels, playing pickleball, and outdoor activities as Assistant Scoutmaster for a combined Scouting America (formerly BSA) girl and boy troop (Troop 65). 

I believe that God is always present but often unseen, and God is manifest to me in a still small voice, when I quiet my own feelings and thoughts and also the constant input from the world - not easy to do on my own! God is also manifest through other people: a time I remember in particular is when I was hurting from a recent loss and a fellow worshipper at St. Thomas spoke to me, acknowledging that I was in pain. I was both comforted and humbled because through that person God was reminding me that he also suffered the loss of fellowship with his Son when Jesus died on the cross, and that he is always there waiting to comfort and guide, and this gave me great peace.

My vision is that our parish will continue to be a place where people from different walks of life and with different interests, personalities, and gifts can worship together, learn together, work together, and serve God together; where all can be spiritually nourished and formed in faith.  I would like to see numbers of people in the pews grow, but even more to help and encourage the people who attend services to become involved in fellowship, formation, stewardship, and outreach.  I would also like each of us to become more sensitive to the needs of other folks in our midst - so that we can all be a source of strength and blessing to one another.  I would like our building and its natural surroundings to be attractive and well-cared for so that our people have a safe places to worship and gather in fellowship. 

If elected to serve on the Vestry, probably the main gift I would bring is the practice of pausing to consider the larger picture, including obstacles and possibilities, before jumping to action, so that when a big decision is made, it can be followed through with confidence. I would bring the following beliefs to decision-making: (1) Every member of the body of Christ has a distinct role to play - our differences are a source of strength for the body; we each need to listen to, trust, support, and see God working in people whose gifts are different from our own; (2) A strong education in the faith is vital for Christians, and learning and growing is a lifelong process; and (3) We are called by God to follow the example of Jesus in feeding the hungry and helping people in need in our own community and in the world.  Our Outreach ministries are both an expression of gratitude to God and a sign that God is at work in our midst.  We are blessed to have a Rector whose faith and whose learning and experience in the Episcopal Church and in life run deep, and who has a vision for what we can be as a parish; I would support Father Michael in helping that vision become reality. 

Rob Turley

My wife Nicki and I relocated to Morgantown mid-2023, following the previous 24 years living in suburban Cincinnati, OH. We regularly started coming to St. Thomas à Becket shortly afterward.

As a quick introduction for those who I haven’t yet met, here are the more trivial bits:

A native West Virginian, born in Charleston; ‘cradle’ Episcopalian; grew up in New Martinsville; attended St. Ann Episcopal parish there in my youth.

Graduated from WVU Pharmacy School in 1976.

Retired in 2016 after 35 years with Kroger: lastly as the Corporate Manager of Kroger’s Pharmacy Benefit Management team.

MBA from Miami University, Ohio, in 2003.

My spiritual journey has taken many surprising twists and turns over the decades, including many years actively attending Methodist churches (Nicki’s childhood faith tradition). Still, the moment I felt most touched by God occurred in 2004 to 2005, when the Spirit led me to Christ Renews His Parish (CRHP) - a men’s retreat weekend followed by a year-long formation process that fully opened my heart to God’s enduring Love. It also taught me the vital importance of community. That retreat weekend and the subsequent formation year firmly cemented my life back in the Episcopal Church.

In God’s unceasing sense of irony, the southwest Ohio parish where I experienced CRHP, and that became our new Episcopal faith community, was also named St. Anne, like the parish in which I was raised here in WV. Over the past 20 years at the ‘second’ St. Anne, some of my roles included the following: Usher, Verger, Lector, Lay Eucharistic Minister, Lay Eucharistic Visitor, Adult Forum Team, 1-1/2 terms on the St. Anne Vestry; Junior and Senior Warden; established Stephen Ministry at St. Anne; forged network relationships with other suburban Cincinnati churches’ Stephen Ministries; spent several years as a trained Stephen minister and leader; served on the Diocese of Southern Ohio’s (DSO) Advisory Committee for Compensation and Resources for seven years.

A major highlight was the four years I spent in Education for Ministry (EfM), a program for Laity from Sewanee - University of the South’s School of Theology. Following EfM, trained in-person for two years to become a Licensed Lay Preacher for the Diocese of Southern Ohio; followed by on-line (during COVID) training as a Licensed Lay Leader.

St. Thomas à Becket truly is one of the best-kept secrets in Morgantown - what an open, compassionate, caring community! In whatever capacity I can, I look forward to working together to use the results from our recent parish survey from Holy Cow! to highlight our parish strengths and help bring Christ’s message of Love to our broader Morgantown community.

Carol Beall

Since 1979 St. Thomas à Becket has been at the center of our lives. I have served as organist or organist/choirmaster both at Becket and at Christ Church, Fairmont. I have also served several times on Vestry, been Senior Warden, chair of a search committee, member of fellowship and outreach committees, and as an acolyte, chalice bearer, and reader. In other words, my spiritual home has been one of the most important facets of my life—right up there with family and career. It has provided a place of strength, solace, friendship, and most importantly, a center for connection with God. I have also had the great opportunity to serve at the diocesan level on the Commission on Ministry and have been a mentor for several now ordained priests and deacons. This connection with the wider work of the church has broadened my perspectives and challenged me to deepen my spiritual life. I had thought my time of serving on Vestry was over, but if I’m elected, I pledge to serve our parish with a view to what new chapter God may be calling us to write.

A moment that comes to mind when I felt God in a powerful way occurred in 2008 when John was gravely ill with endocarditis. Days passed while his life hung in the balance, and I had no idea what the future held. Somehow with the idea from the writings of Eckhardt Tolle that we must live in the moment, not trying to project into the future nor relive the past, I KNEW that God was in charge, and that whatever happened I would eventually be alright because He was with me.

I believe our parish has already started to write an exciting new chapter. And I would be really excited to be involved in that. I envision again having a viable formation program for all ages which can lead us all into a deeper spiritual commitment and make the Church a real part of the lives of our children. At the same time I hope we can expand the outreach we already do beyond our walls, accepting Christ’s call to minister to all. We do fellowship well, but we must not let our efforts relax because our connection to each other helps keep us strong. And I love that we have found a way to combine the traditional and historical forms of worship with a passion for finding and expressing God’s love in our lives. I know the next generations will find their path forward in our church, adapting it as their era demands, but I hope they will also keep what is most sacred about the faith we share.

I obviously bring a long history and deep knowledge of how our parish has developed over the years. Sometimes that can be useful. But I also want to look forward to envision and start to enact what we can become because I think we have laid the foundation on which to grow into an even more vibrant community of faith and service.