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Jubilate Alumni Connections
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Winter 2007
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Alumni Profiles
(Click images to expand.)
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1976-77 Vince and Sharon Wilcox
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Hey Jubi-lum!
Jubilate('75-'78) had an indelible impact on my life. Even though I hadn’t been in high school band or chorus, Jubilate’s founding director, Carl Beard, saw potential in me. What Jubilate taught me about music, performance, grace, community, and authenticity has lasted a lifetime.
After graduation, I pursued a career in Christian music which continues to this day, working in virtually every aspect of the business: marketing VP for Benson Records, sales VP for Provident Distribution, and recording artist and songwriter for Benson and Light Records. Since 2001, I’ve co-owned VanLiere-Wilcox, managing the careers of such artists as Todd Agnew and NewSong.
My marriage was also shaped by Jubilate. In 1976, I encouraged Sharon Hickman, a fellow Tidewater,
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VA, Wahoo, to audition for the group. Jubilate was a great “growing zone” for us and we were married after my graduation in 1978. Sharon earned her MS in Nursing from Vanderbilt University in 1993 and serves as a neonatal nurse practitioner in Maury Regional Hospital in Columbia, TN. Our older daughter, Lauren, is a freshman in the Music Business program at Belmont University. Our 16 year old, Alli, is an aspiring singer/songwriter and spends her free time writing, recording, and performing music.
We make our home in Franklin, TN, where we are very involved in the ministry of Franklin Fellowship, a small but vibrant church pastored by our brother-in-law. The lessons we learned about authenticity and community in Jubilate continue to resonate in our relationships today.
Vince Wilcox (College ’78)
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1986-87 Robin Veasey Wilder
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I sang soprano in Jubilate from 1985 through 1987. Jubilate was the most stabilizing influence in my life during my college years. After graduating with a BA in Biology, I returned to Richmond to begin my career in wetland science. I now live in Sandston, VA with my family. I, with my two daughters from a previous marriage, married Tim Wilder with his son from a previous marriage, in 2001. We were blessed in 2002 with another daughter. That makes a total of four children in the household. Emily Morgan, 18, is a freshman at Virginia Tech. Sarah Morgan, 16, and Dustin Wilder, also 16, are juniors at the local high school. Charlotte Wilder, 4, enjoys loving and tormenting her older siblings. I love that my home is always full of teenagers right now, my own and others. I pray that my life and my words
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are both encouraging to them and lead them to rely on Jesus Christ in and for everything. I am employed at Henrico County's Department of Public Works as a Water Quality Analyst. That means I romp around in the streams and wetlands in central Virginia on a regular basis. Tim is a mechanic and owns his own auto repair shop, Wilder's Auto Repair, in Richmond. The family attends Newbridge Baptist Church in Sandston. Do I still sing? Yes - in the shower, the car, and the kitchen. But I recently quit the church choir to play the cello in the church orchestra. In addition to my music ministry, I also lead a Sunday morning bible study for the youth, and because of my obsession with knitting have begun a prayer shawl ministry in the community.
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My years in Jubilate were certainly some of the most memorable of my life. I credit Jubilate and the friendships and fellowship I experienced as a member with keeping me Christian in the face of many internal and external influences to the contrary.
As a consequence of my experience in Jubilate, I absolutely knew that I had to be a part of music ministry in whatever church community called me to be a member. For me, that started out as volunteering as a member of the contemporary choir at the church in which I was raised in Woodbridge, Virginia. I also began volunteering in youth ministry and leading the youth choir during their monthly youth worship. All this only lasted for one year following graduation.
After that first year floundering professionally as a temporary employee, I finally got sick of it and called a pastor in Middleburg, Virginia who I heard was “looking for someone.” As it turned out, he was looking for anyone to help him in a community that was rapidly developing from a farming community into sprawling suburbs of Washington, D.C. He needed someone young and with a lot of energy to help him, and being able to sing did not hurt either. So I became the Youth Minister at St. Stephen the Martyr Church in July of 2000. I also led the worship in one of the two “mission” communities the pastor started in order to serve a population that was rapidly outgrowing the 200-seat church in the country. After three years of working as the youth minister and resident “strong-backed male,” I was promoted to the position of Pastoral Associate for the church’s Haymarket mission community. The pastor immediately told me that I needed more education to serve the community better.
So, in the spring semester of 2004, I enrolled in classes at Washington Theological Union in Washington, D.C. and began working part-time on a Master’s Degree in Theology. I soon discovered |
that the academic endeavor was far more important to me than pastoral ministry. I found in it a true life and vitality. And I was good at it! Learning about the history of the Church, the development, exegesis, and interpretation of the scriptures, the philosophical and theological history of Christianity from the Bible right up through modern and post-modern theology really got me fired up! The Holy Spirit took charge and I left my position in the church to finish my Master’s.
Happily, I finished the course-work toward my MA by May of last year. I still have a rather large thesis hanging over my head, and am working on it a little at a time. I reconnected with my high-school sweetheart last August and have moved north to Connecticut to be near her while she finishes her time at Yale Law School. The Lord has a sense of humor though. I needed a job once I arrived here and promptly got one as a – you guessed it – Youth Minister! I am up to my eyeballs in a vibrant church in Southbury Connecticut. My hope and prayer is that I can make a positive impact on this community while I work on my paper and apply to doctoral programs this year.
Other than that, I still have my bulldog, Roscoe (some of you know him). I still drive the same Honda Civic I bought when I got my first church job back in 2000 (laughing at every SUV I see at the gas station). I’ve still got a full head of amazingly curly hair (though I try to keep it under control – mostly), and I can still hit the high note on Moses Hogan’s “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho” (full voice – no amplification needed – TENOR POWER BABY!) Finally, I still believe that communities of faith like Jubilate, which are welcoming and open to people of all Christian denominations allow us all to experience God as revealed to us by Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit more fully than we ever could on our own.
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I thank God for helping me to find the right Church and the right singing ministry to join. I remember when I had the chance to come to the USA to continue my masters’ degree program, I had to do a lot of planning which included my spiritual life. I went browsing the internet to search for spiritual groups in Charlottesville to join and, by Gods grace, I chanced on University Baptist Church and Jubilate.
I must confess that, Jubilate has been one of the few groups which has made me feel at home away from home At first I felt the bond which existed among the members was too strong to allow me to fit in but in no time, I was engulfed by the fellowship.
This was made possible by the encouragement, spiritual and material support provided to me by the Honorable Music Director, Alba Beasley, Rev. Dr. Thomas Leland (UBC pastor) and the rest of the church and the group.
I was born in Ghana on Dec 31, 1981. I will be returning back to Ghana by July 2007. I am currently
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enrolled as a masters’ student at the department of biology, undertaking research in the field of molecular biology.
I had my undergraduate studies at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, department of Agriculture Science. I held positions like, the organizing secretary of Agricultural Student Christian Fellowship, secretary of child wing evangelism and an executive member of the Baptist Student Union (BSU).
I was the graduate students' Christian fellowship president of the University of Ghana until I arrived in the US in August 2006. Currently, I am a member of Unversity Baptist Church , Jubilate, Black Voices Choir, Intervarsity Christian fellowship and International Students Incorporated.
I love to sing and dance to the glory of the Lord and also love to tell the good news to Sunday School children.
Joseph
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