Pastoral Nominating Committee

First Presbyterian Church is in the process of calling our next installed pastor. The Pastoral Nominating Committee began meeting in May 2024, and our Ministry Discernment Profile has been posted to Church Leadership Connection (for those registered on the CLC website, it can be viewed at https://clc.pcusa.org/mdp/11768/view/). We have also placed an advertisement in the print and online versions of Presbyterian Outlook. Our liaison to Presbytery in this process is Linda Shelley. These are the members elected as the 2024 Pastoral Nominating Committee:

Donna Barber is an active ordained elder, former Clerk of the Session, member and chair of the Personnel team, and member of Together in Service and the Deborah Circle. She has service on a previous Pastor Nominating Committee and the Interim Pastor Nominating Committee. Donna has three adult children and six grandchildren. Five of the six grandchildren were baptized at First Presbyterian and two attended the Preschool. She is a retired nurse and public health official.

 

 

Barbara Busharis is an ordained elder, former Clerk of Session, and member of the Care & Outreach and Personnel teams and Mary and Martha Circle. She also served on the Interim Pastor Nominating Committee. She has two adult sons, Aidan and Ethan Tozer, who grew up at First Presbyterian and attended the Preschool. She is an assistant public defender in Leon County.

 

 

Ruben Diaz Perez is an ordained elder who joined First Presbyterian Church in 2016. He is from Guatemala, where he was raised in the Presbyterian Church. He is married to Jane Atkinson and they are the parents of Celeste (9) and Mateo (4). He was a member of the Committee on Representation at the Presbytery Level. He speaks a Mayan Language called Mam and works as an independent interpreter for the Maya Mam community.

 

 

Martha Middlebrooks Kutter is an ordained elder, Head of the Worship Team, and a founding member of the Hannah Circle. She has a rising high schooler named Emmie Kutter and a rising middle schooler named Paul Brooks Kutter, both of whom were baptized at First Presbyterian Church. She is married to Paul Edward Kutter, who was also baptized and grew up at First Presbyterian Church. She is a Biology and Life Science teacher.

 

 

Sue Scribner is a new (2023) member of First Presbyterian.  She is a member of the Dorcas Circle – aka Tabitha – of Presbyterian Women at Westminster Oaks. Sue moved to Tallahassee from Massachusetts in 2001. She was baptized at a young age at Central Presbyterian Church in Summit, NJ. Sue’s career was in teaching grades two through six.

 

 

Ann Westall has been a member of First Presbyterian since 1974. She is an ordained elder, former church school teacher, and chair of the Healing Racism Task Force. She is married to Rod Westall and has two adult children, Aaron and Kacey, who grew up at First Presbyterian. She is retired.

 

 

Stan Williams is an ordained elder, a Sunday school leader and was a member of the Envisioning Reconciliation Committee. He is a homemaker and former nurse and hospice caregiver. He met his wife Lisa at a Presbyterian/United Methodist college ministry. Decades later, his two children, Alan and Dorothy, benefitted greatly from UKirk FSU and the Presbyterian Episcopal College Ministry at App State.