The Rev. Mary Virginia "Dindy" Taylor of Cleveland, Tenn., has been elected bishop of the United Methodist Church's South Carolina Conference. This is the highest office to which a clergy person in the United Methodist Church can be named.
In her new position, she will oversee several hundred United Methodist churches and ministers throughout South Carolina.
She is the first woman bishop to come out of the United Methodist Church's Holston Conference, which covers Northwest Georgia, East Tennessee, Northeast Alabama and Southwest Virginia.
Mrs. Taylor -- who currently is the Cleveland District superintendent and had formerly served as co-pastor with her husband, Rusty, at Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church in Chattanooga from 1989-96 -- was the last of six bishops elected during the 2004 Southeastern Jurisdictional Conference, which ended Saturday at Lake Junaluska, N.C.
Her election came on a Southeastern Jurisdictional Conference record 34th ballot late Friday night. To be elected bishop, a candidate must receive 60 percent of the vote among those clergy and lay delegates casting ballots. Elections of bishops are held first, and then a special committee assigns them to various conferences.
Mrs. Taylor's husband currently serves as senior minister at First United Methodist Church in Cleveland.
Bishop-Elect Taylor is completing her fifth year as superintendent and has been a member of the Holston Conference for 30 years. She has also been a college chaplain, pastor, and college trustee.
Reared in Decatur, Ga., she holds a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Georgia and a master of divinity from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. She and her husband have been married for 31 years. They are the parents of two daughters.
Elected as the new bishop of the Holston Conference is the Rev. James Swanson of the South Georgia Conference.