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Newton Tennis Gottschall (1893-1979) was a Methodist Episcopal Church missionary to Indonesia and Hawaii. Gottschall was born in Galesburg, Illinois, on April 2, 1893. He received a bachelor of science in education degree from the University of Missouri in 1920 and a bachelor of arts from the University of Missouri in 1921. Gottschall graduated from Garrett Biblical Institute in 1929 and earned an M.A. from Northwestern University in 1930.

Upon arrival in Indonesia in 1920, he began education work. In July 192, he married Charlotte Agnes Swank of Rossville, Indiana. That same year he was received on trial in the Netherlands Indies Mission Conference. In 1923 he was granted full connection and ordained a deacon. In 1925 he was ordained an elder. From 1929-1935 Gottschall was the principal at the Methodist Boys' School in Medan.

Gottschall returned to the United States in 1935 and pastored several churches in Indiana. He was also appointed missionary secretary for the North West Indiana Conference, a position he held from 1940 to 1948. In 1949 Gottschall resumed his missionary activities in Hawaii and remained there until 1955.

Newton Gottschall died on January 26, 1979 at Wesley Manor in Frankfort, Indiana, at the age of 85. He is buried in the Rossville, Indiana Cemetery.

Augustus Waldo Drury (1851-1935), Professor of Systematic Theology and Church History at Bonebrake Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio, served as the denominational historian during his lifetime. He had a number of academic interests, most notably in theology, history, and later in his career he was interested in secularization, the local histories of Dayton, Ohio area, and William James. Drury is most well known for his biography on Otterbien as well as his three volume history of the United Brethren Church in Christ; Drury received high praise from his denomination for these works.

Drury was a husband and father and had an avid correspondence with a significant number of persons related to the United Brethren Church in Christ. He would regularly receive questions regarding lineage in families and church relations, as well as financial histories--such as a minister's salary at a particular church.

Bishop Leontine Turpeau Current Kelly (1920-2012) was born on March 5, 1920 in Washington, D.C., to the Reverend David DeWitt Turpeau and Ila Mashall Turpeau.

The Washington Annual Conference elected Matthew Clair a bishop, the second African American to be elected bishop. Bishop Clair baptized Leontine Turpeau that day.

According to family narratives, Bishop Clair stated on this day, "Oh, how I wish you were a boy so that my mantle might fall upon you." Sixty years later, it did.

Leontine Kelly's life is rooted in Methodism. Her father and brother were both Methodist ministers. Kelly attended West Virginia State College for three years, but left to marry Gloster Bryant Current in 194l after her junior year. They had three children together before their divorce in the early 1950s.

In 1956,Leontine Kelly married Methodist minister James Kelly. She returned to college and completed her B.A. in 1960 at Virginia Union University, and took a position as a social studies teacher. Though Kelly was a certified lay speaker, she did not become a pastor until the death of her husband in 1969, when she accepted an invitation from Galilee Church to be his successor. In 1976 she obtained her master's of divinity degree from Wesley Theological Seminary, thus becoming an ordained minister.

From 1977 to 1983, Kelly was pastor of Asbury-Church Hill United Methodist Church in Richmond, Virginia. In 1983 she became the assistant general secretary of evangelism for the United Methodist General Board of Discipleship in Nashville.

Kelly received her doctor of divinity degree in 1984 from the Garrett Evangelical Seminary in Evanston, Illinois. In July 1984, Kelly and the Methodist Church made history when 64-year-old clergywomen was elected bishop of the California-Nevada Conference. Kelly thus became the first African American woman to be elected bishop, not only in the Methodist Church, but in any major denomination.

She also became the first woman to preach on the National Radio Pulpit, the first woman to serve as assistant general secretary of the Board of Discipleship's Evangelical Unit, and the only woman bishop to participate and be arrested in the Good Friday Livermore Weapons Laboratory protest in 1985. In 1956, Kelly became the first African American female bishop to address an international meeting of Methodists - the World Methodist Council in Nairobi.

Kelly retired in 1988 at the age of 68. She continued her work as a preacher, teacher, and social activist. Some of her numerous post- retirement activities include, serving as visiting professor of evangelism and witness for two years at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California, and serving as adjunct professor at Pacific School of Religion and Hartford Seminary.

Continuing her social activism, Kelly became the president of the AIDS National Interfaith Network (ANIN) and president of the Interreligious Health Care ACCESS Campaign. On top of these numerous responsibilities Kelly maintained a full speaking and preaching schedule. Due to her active and historic service Kelly received more than ten honorary degrees, the Martin Luther King Drum Major for Justice award, the Grass Roots Leadership Award for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and Ebony Magazine's Black Achievement Award in the area of religion. She was featured in Brian Lanker's book I Dream A World: Portraits of Black Women who have Changed America, as well as in Diana Hayes' book , And Still We Rise. Kelly was her inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York in October 2000.

Sylvanus C. Breyfogel (1851-1934), American Evangelical bishop, was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, on July 20, 1851, the son of the Rev. and Mrs. Seneca Breyfogel.

Breyfogel was licensed in the East Pennsylvania Conference and ordained in 1877. He served in the pastorate and as district superintendent until 1891, when he was elected bishop at the General Conference in Indianapolis. He continued in this office for thirty-nine years until he retired at the General Conference in 1930.

Breyfogel helped to form the retirement program, known as the Superannuation Fund. He also was especially influential in the development of Albright College in Reading.

Breyfogel traveled throughout the United States and Canada, and also visited Europe, Japan and China. And worked with the Federal Council of Churches.

Breyfogel also served as president of the Evangelical School of Theology at Reading, and was the chief sponsor of the Evangelical Correspondence College, organized in 1885.

He wrote several books: Landmarks in the Evangelical Association, 1800-1877; Great Sermons by Great Preachers; The Preachers Assistant; and The Polity of the Evangelical Association. He was married in 1877 to Kate Boas, a member of a prominent Evangelical family. She died August 1, 1928. Breyfogel died at his home in Reading on November 24, 1934.

Elmer Edwin Burtner (1881-1923) was a Church of the United Brethren in Christ minister. He attended Shenandoah Institute in Dayton, Virginia, and received a B.A. from Otterbein College in 1906. Burtner also received a B.D. (1909) and M.A. (1910) from Yale Divinity School. He earned a Ph.D. from Otterbein College in 1918. In 1910 he married Maude Truxall.

Burtner was ordained in 1909 by the Congregational Church, and during college he preached. After graduation he began a pastorate at the First Congregational Church in Missoula, Missouri. He later served the Congregational Church in Spokane, Washington. In September 1915 Burtner transferred his membership to the Southeast Ohio Conference of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ. He served in Westerville, Ohio, from 1915-1923.