The Rev'd Wayland Coe Elected President of the Prayer Book Society of the USA

(February 14, 2002 A.D.) W. Denman Zirkle, Chairman of the Prayer Book Society, today announced that The Rev. Dr. Peter Toon, President of the Prayer Book Society for the past nearly ten years, has stepped down as President to return to his native Great Britain as a parish priest. At the meeting of the Society's Board of Directors in Houston on January 26 the Reverend Wayland N. Coe, Rector of St. Thomas' Church, Houston, was elected from, and by, the Board as the new President. A native of Austin, and married to the former Janet Gay of San Antonio, Wayland has been rector of St. Thomas' for the past six years.

St. Thomas' was founded by the Reverend T. Robert Ingram in 1954, and its formation was accompanied by the establishment of the St. Thomas' School, located on the church property. The school is recognized as the Kindergarten-High School church school of highest academic standing in the Houston area, and currently boasts an enrollment of some 675 students. St. Thomas' Church uses only the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, and provides daily services of Morning Prayer for the school students, who also use the 1928 Book. You will read more about Father Coe in our upcoming issue of Mandate.

Dr. Toon is now living in Stoke-on-Trent in the United Kingdom and is rector of Christ Church there. At the January meeting he was elected to the position of Vice President and Emissary-at-Large of the Prayer Book Society and will remain a Director. He will also continue as Editor of Mandate during this year, then assume the position of Editor-at-Large. Under this new structure, the Prayer Book Society will retain Dr. Toon's academic prominence and continue to benefit from his writings in Mandate, as well as his representation of the Society at significant meetings and conferences throughout the Anglican Communion.

Re-elected as Vice President was the Reverend David Kennedy, Rector of the Church of the Guardian Angels in Lantana, Florida.

Mrs. Miriam Stauff, an attorney in Milwaukee, was re-elected Secretary, and Mr. Michael Freeland, managing director of an investment firm in Bryn Mawr, Pa., was elected Treasurer.