Union announces new trustees chair and members
Ed Roberson, Christopher Edmonston, Peter Bynum, and President Brian K. Blount at the board of trustees meeting in January 2018.
ED ROBERSON IS NEW BOARD OF TRUSTEES CHAIR
Ed Roberson’s Presbyterian forebears made their way up the Cape Fear River in the royal colony of North Carolina in the 1740s. They began farming on land that is still the Robersons’ today. This was near Tarboro, a town that is the ninth oldest in the state.
While Roberson holds a special respect for his ancestors — “pastors and saints all,” he says— it’s obvious that his thoughts are very much about the here and now, especially regarding Union Presbyterian Seminary.
He was elected chair of the board of trustees in November 2017, and, on assuming that post, said “I think that we are in a golden era at the seminary. It has to do with the work that goes on in that place… by the students, the faculty, the staff, the board, and donors.
“Everybody is focused and working in harmony,” he said, “which I think is a rare thing in institutions of higher learning.”
He describes the first board meeting that he chaired with a clear sense of appreciation.
“It was a retreat to develop a roadmap, a strategic plan for the next five years,” he said. “It went very well, and I was happy with the response. The board was intensely involved, and we got a lot done.”
“Things are good.”
Roberson describes the work of the seminary as being “like a complex symphony, with variation on themes played every day. President Brian Blount is maestro, leading this place in such harmony. The result,” he said, “is melodic.”
Roberson, a 1971 graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, comes to the chair position after a 35-year career as part owner of an insurance agency in Tarboro. He remains active in Howard Memorial Presbyterian Church and in a range of community activities in and around Tarboro.
“My main avocation these days is this seminary job,” he said. “And I believe it was divinely directed. I retired from my job the day I accepted the call to be the chair.”
He will serve in the position through December 2018.
NEW TRUSTEES
Peter Bynum (M.Div.’09) has served as the senior minister of the First Presbyterian Church of Concord since August of 2014. After graduation from Davidson College in 1991, he worked in Washington, D.C. on the legislative staffs of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and Senator Terry Sanford.
Bynum earned his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1996. After ten years of practicing real estate law, he discerned a call to ministry and received his Master of Divinity degree from Union Presbyterian Seminary. Prior to moving to Concord, Bynum served as the senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Rocky Mount, NC. He and his wife Stephanie have two daughters, Molly and Kate .
Christopher Edmonston (M.Div.’99) began ministry at White Memorial Presbyterian Church in September 2011. He has moderated presbytery committees, serves on the Montreat Retreat Association board, and has served as the president of the board of “The Presbyterian Outlook.” He is a contributor to “Feasting on the Gospels” and is a former member of the national strategy team and current member of the national advisory team for NEXT Church, a renewal movement within the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). He was recognized as a William Friday Fellow (2011-13).
Edmonston is a graduate of Davidson College, Union Presbyterian Seminary, and Columbia Theological Seminary (Doctor of Ministry). He and his wife, Colleen Camaione-Edmonston, have three children, Patrick, Gabriel, and Amelia.
