CLICK FOR 2016 PROFILE OF RECTOR

Father Dane Boston,

Christ Church Rector,

Leaving Cooperstown

Promoted, He Returns To S.C. Cathedral

COOPERSTOWN  – Father Dane Boston, four-year rector at Christ Church Episcopal, today advised his congregation he is returning to Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Columbia, S.C., as dean, the ranking position after that of bishop.

The upcoming Christmas service will be his last locally, he said.

The announcement comes at a time of transition in the Cooperstown clergy:

• The Rev. Joe Purdue, First Baptist Church pastor, announced last week he’s accepted a position as pastor of the Branford (Conn.) Congregational Church, after three years in the local pulpit.
• The Rev. Faith Gay preached her first sermon last Sunday at Cooperstown Presbyterian Church, succeeding the Rev. Elsie Rhodes, who resigned last spring.  She said her ordination ceremony at the church is planned Nov. 29.
• The Catholic Church, St. Mary’s “Our Lady of the Lake,” welcomed a new pastor, Father Michael Cambi, in September, after the retirement of longtime pastor Father John Rosson in 2019.
• And Cooperstown United Methodist Church, whose last fulltime pastor, the Rev. Tom LeBeau, accepted a position last year in Jamestown, has been ministered parttime by the Rev. Dana Horrell, but has been closed for months due to the COVID-19 threat.

Boston came to Cooperstown in August 2016 from Columbia,  where he had been canon for Christian Formation at the cathedral. Previously, he served as a curate of Christ Church in Greenwich, Conn.

A native of Dunedin, Fla., Dane was ordained a deacon at R.E. Lee Memorial Episcopal Church in Lexington, Va., in November 2011. On June 5, 2012, the Feast of St Boniface, Dane was ordained a priest at Christ Church Greenwich.

As an undergraduate at Washington & Lee University, Dane studied English literature and earned a certificate from the Shepherd Program for the Interdisciplinary Study of Poverty and Human Capability. He was actively engaged in volunteer and community building efforts in and around Lexington, sang with various choral and a capella groups, and served as a member of the Rector Search Committee at R.E. Lee Church.

For two of his three years at the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, Dane served as the Seminarian Intern at St Paul’s Church in Wallingford, Conn. His studies at Yale included a strong focus on homiletics. Dane also participated in the newly launched Educational Leadership and Ministry program, exploring strategies for ministering to young people in both educational and parochial settings.

At graduation, Dane was awarded the E. William Muehl Prize for Preaching, given annually by the faculty of Berkeley Divinity School to “the most eloquent preacher in the graduating class.”

Father Boston and his wife Debbie – the couple had met at Washington & Lee – arrived with two children, and two more joined the family during their Cooperstown sojourn.