Retired Bishop Craig Anderson greets the children of St. Thomas Episcopal Church, where he will serve as interim priest for a year until the church finds a new pastor to replace Brian Baker.
The cowboy hat that the Rev. Brian Baker left behind fits.
But the man who takes over at St. Thomas Episcopal Church already fills some pretty big shoes of his own.
The Rt. Rev. Craig Anderson brings a long list of credentials to his interim post at St. Thomas. Those credentials include stints as president of the National Council of Churches, as a crusader to have women ordained to the ministry and as president, dean and professor of theology at General Seminary of the Episcopal Church in New York City.
Bu the main credential bringing him to Ketchum is that of being Sun Valley resident Dick Hare’s boyhood friend.
“We were best friend growing up in Eagle Rock, Calif. We were best men in each other’s weddings. He got me a job at Proctor and Gamble before I became a priest. And I baptized all his kids,” said Anderson.
Anderson said he had just retired to Maine when Hare asked him what he would think about coming to Sun Valley.
“I said, ‘What’s not to love about going to Sun Valley!?’”
Anderson has been a bishop in the Episcopal Church since 1984, spending nine years of that in the Episcopal Diocese of South Dakota.
There, the boyishly handsome blond-haired bishop worked to fight institutional racism against the Native Americans, trying to get them such things as better health care. He also pressed for reconciliation with the Native Americans, whose 88 Episcopal churches make up for than two-thirds of the congregations in the Diocese.
When the Sioux Nation stood against the Bradley Bill, which would have essentially allowed the U.S. government to purchase the Black Hills from the Indians, Anderson stood with them.
“My proudest moment was when the churches stood together with the Lakota against the Bradley Bill and said, “We support you,’” he recalled.
For his efforts, Anderson was honored with the Governor’s Award for Reconciliation and the Sacred Hoop Peace Medal by the Great Sioux Nation.
He was also adopted by the Oglala Tribe of the Pine Ridge Reservation and given the name “Wanbli Tokaheya,” or “Leading Eagle.”
And on Sunday he shared his second language with the congregation of St. Thomas, greeting them with an Indian greeting, which means, “We are all brothers and sisters.”
Anderson served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army teaching infantry during the Vietnam War. He entered seminary in 1972, following six years with the marketing department of Proctor and Gamble, and earned a Ph.D. in Theology from Vanderbilt University.
When he retired he was head of St. Paul’s School in Concord, N.H.
He has kept busy in retirement, serving on the Harvard Business School Board for Social Enterprise, the Council on Foreign Relations and the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships.
Anderson said he is looking forward to serving the 700-member congregation of St. Thomas, which is the second largest parish in the Idaho Diocese.
“It’s an important parish because of its makeup of very talented people,” he said.
There’s a brain trust of very exceptional, very active retirees here. The intellectual stimulation here is very exciting.”
Karen Bossick
Wood River Journal – Sun Valley, ID – June 7, 2006