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John Gordon Howard (1899-1974), American bishop, college president and editor, was born to missionary parents in Tokyo on December 3, 1899. His father, Alfred Taylor Howard, was a bishop of the Evangelical United Brethren Church. He graduated from Otterbein College in 1922 with an A.B., Bonebrake Theological Seminary in 1925 with a B.D., and New York University in 1927 with an M.A. Licensed by the Miami Conference in 1924 and ordained in 1925, Howard served as Youth Director in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ for thirteen years (1927-1939).

Howard then spent five years as editor of Sunday School literature. In 1945 he was elected president of Otterbein College. During the next twelve years, he greatly strengthened that institution. On August 1, 1957, Howard was elected a bishop of The Evangelical United Brethren Church and assigned to the East Central Episcopal Area. After the merger with the Methodist Church he was assigned to the Philadelphia episcopal seat. He had two daughters with his first wife, Rhea McConaughy, who died in 1965. In 1967 he married Katherine Higgins Shannon. Howard died on December 24, 1974.

Arthur R. Clippinger (1878-1958) was a Church of the United Brethren in Christ minister and bishop. He was a public school teacher and a Sunday School superintendent at the age of eighteen. Clippinger enrolled in Lebanon Valley College in 1900 and graduated in 1905. While he was a student he received a ministerial license and probationary membership from the Pennsylvania Conference in 1903.

As a student he served in Greencastle and New Cumberland, Pennsylvania. In 1907 he married Ellen Mills (1882-1955) and enrolled in Yale Divinity School, from which he graduated in 1910. During his studies there he served Congregational churches.

In 1910 he became pastor of Summit Street Church in Dayton, Ohio. A year later, he was ordained in that church. Under his direction, the congregation grew, and built a new church on Dayton's Euclid Avenue, and renamed Euclid Avenue Church. In 1918, the Miami Conference elected him superintendent, and in 1921 he became a bishop of the Central Area of Ohio, where he served until retiring in 1950. He was a strong force in bringing together the Evangelical Church and the Church of the United Brethren in Christ in 1946.

Clippinger served on nearly every board or department of the various agencies of his denomination. He was a member of the Federal Council of Churches. During World War II he served on the National Chaplains' Commission. As a bishop he visited mission fields in China, Japan, the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo. He was also present at the first assembly of the World Council of Churches in Amsterdam in 1948.

William Orville Shepard (1862-1931), Methodist Episcopal Church bishop, was born at Sterling, Illinois, on April 11, 1862. He graduated from Jennings Seminary (Aurora, Illinois), DePauw University, A.B., 1885; S.T.B., 1886; then A.M., 1888; D.D., 1896; LL. D., 1912; Syracuse University, Ph.D., 1895 (hon. D.D. and LL.D.). Shepard was ordained in the Methodist Episcopal Church and joined the Rock River Conference in 1886. He held pastorates at Blue Island, Elgin (First Church), Rockford (Court Street), Chicago (Oakland), Evanston, and Englewood (Chicago), between 1886-1909. He served as district superintendent of the Chicago Northern District from 1909 to 1912.

Shepard was elected bishop in 1912, and his episcopal areas were: Kansas City, Kansas, 1912-1916; Wichita, Kansas, 1916-1920; and Portland, Oregon, 1920-1928, an area which included Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Alaska. In 1928, Shepard was assigned to Paris, France. This assignment encompassed France, Spain, Italy, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, North Africa, Madeira Islands, and Liberia. He made trips to South America in 1916 and 1924, and to Europe in 1920, in order to survey post-war conditions and needs. He also made two trips into the Congo region.

William Orville Shepard married Emily Odell on August 15, 1883. The couple raised four sons. Shepard was considered a spokesman on moral questions, and in 1897 he published a book of sermons entitled "Oakland Sermons." He died November 30, 1931 at the age of sixty-nine and was buried in Mount Hope, Chicago.

Elmer Ellsworth Higley (1867-1931), American Methodist minister, was born on July 6, 1867 in William County Ohio. His family moved to Crawford Country, Pennsylvania where he attended Conneautville High School, the Edinboro Normal School, and Allegheny College. Higley was later called to ministry and served his first appointment in Centerville, Pennsylvania. There, he met his wife Alice C. Dowler and they were married on August 16, 1892. Together they had five children, two of which were twin boys who died during infancy.

Higley attended Drew Theological Seminary and completed his degree at New York University. Later he completed pastorates in Sherman, New York; Kane and Newcastle, Pennsylvania; Grace Church, Denver, Colorado; and Grace Church, Des Moines, Iowa.

He then gained charge of the Department of Indian Work under the Board of Home Missions and Church Extension, and the Woman’s Home Missionary Society. Higley was part of a committee that was called to confer with President Coolidge on Native American matters. Through his work, he was recognized as an authority on Indian Life and customs, and was adopted into the Mohawk and Cherokee tribes.

Higley accepted a call at the College Church in Ames, Iowa, and from Iowa he transferred to Park Ridge, Illinois where he gave services and planned Passion Week and Easter. Besides the many poems, songs, cantatas that he wrote, he was also the author of “Homespun Religion” and “The Sterile Soul”. On March 22, he was giving a service when he fell unconscious and was taken to Evanston Hospital. On Tuesday, March 24, 1931 he died without regaining consciousness.

W. Maynard Sparks (1906-1999) was an Evangelical United Brethren bishop. He graduated from Lebanon Valley College in 1927, United Theological Seminary in 1930, and from the University of Pittsburgh in 1936. He was licensed as a Quarterly Conference minister in 1919, granted a license to preach in 1923 by the Allegheny Conference of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, and ordained by that conference in 1930. In 1931 he married Blanche M. Frank. Sparks pastored for sixteen years in western Pennsylvania and then elected Superintendent of the Allegheny Conference of the Evangelical United Brethren Church in 1946. He served in this position until 1950. In 1950 he was elected to the faculty of Lebanon Valley College to serve as Assistant Professor of Religion. In 1958 he was elected bishop and assigned to the Western Area where he resided in Sacramento, California. Sparks later served in the Seattle Area. Sparks also served overseas in Sierra Leone (1961-1967), Germany and Switzerland (1965), and Brazil (1967). He was also a member of the Commission on Church Union. Sparks died August 17, 1999.

Darrell L. Reeck (1939- ), American ethics scholar, university administrator and ordained United Methodist minister, was born in Tacoma, Washington, in 1939. In 1962, the Pacific Northwest Annual Conference, Methodist Church, accepted him as candidate for ordination. He was later ordained an elder by the same annual conference in 1965. After completing his doctoral studies in Religious Studies with a focus on Ethics from Boston University he joined the faculty at University of Puget Sound and would become an assistant dean during his tenure. Reeck also worked as a money manager for the United Methodist Development Fund as well as other financial institutions. He finished his career in United Methodist ministry and retired in 2006.

Reverend Samuel George Ziegler (1884-1980), Evangelical United Brethren pastor and General Church officer, was born to Daniel and Polly Lou Ziegler in Hanover, Pennsylvania, on October 14, 1884. His parents raised him religiously as part of the United Brethren Church. From age 15 to 19, he worked in a shoe factory in Hanover. At age 19, he began high school at York Collegiate Institute and graduated in 1908. Ziegler earned his Associate’s Degree in 1911 from Lebanon Valley College and Bachelor’s Degree in 1914 from Bonebrake United Theological Seminary. Ordained in 1911 by the Central Pennsylvania Conference, Ziegler served pastorates in Duncannon, Pennsylvania and in Baltimore and Hagerstown, Maryland. The honorary Doctor of Divinity Degree was conferred upon him in 1922 from Lebanon Valley College in Lebanon, Ohio. He was elected to the office of General Secretary of the United Brethren Foreign Missionary Society by the United Brethren General Conference of 1921, and served the position of Associate Secretary of the Division of World Missions until his retirement in 1958. His interdenominational responsibilities included: member of the Board of Directors M.E.M., member on Committee on Cooperation in Latin America, member on Africa Committee, F.M.C., member on Committee World Literacy and Christian Literature, and member of Board for Christian Work in Santo Domingo.

Dr. Ziegler had three sons, one daughter, nine grandchildren, and twelve great grandchildren. At the time of his death he was a resident of the Otterbein Home, Lebanon, Ohio. He married the former Ethel Redding, in 1911. She also graduated from Bonebrake Theological Seminary as a deaconess, and died in 1974.

Hazen G. Werner (1895-1988), American bishop, was born on July 29, 1895, in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Samuel E. and Emma E. (Graff) Werner. From Albion College he received the A.B. degree in 1920; from Drew Theological Seminary, B.D., 1923. On May 22, 1924, he married Catherine Stewart of New York City. They had two children. Hazen Werner was admitted on trial in the Michigan Conference in 1920, ordained deacon, 1922, and Elder in 1924. He was pastor of Westlawn Church, Detroit, 1924-1928; Cass Avenue Church, Detroit, 1928-1931; Court Street Church, Flint, Michigan, 1931-1934; Grace Church, Dayton, Ohio, 1934-1945. From 1945 to 1948 he taught practical theology at Drew Theological Seminary. Werner was elected bishop of The Methodist Church in 1948 by the North Central Jurisdictional Conference, and was appointed resident bishop of the Ohio Area. In 1951 he was a delegate to the Ecumenical Methodist Conference, Oxford, England, and in 1956 a speaker at the ninth World Methodist Conference. He was chairman of the National Methodist Family Life Conferences in Chicago, 1951; Cleveland, 1954; Chicago, 1958; and Chicago, 1962. In 1964 he was appointed chairman of the World Family Life Committee as well as chairman of the General Committee on The Advance. As a Bishop for the United Methodist Church, he served as a member of the Board of Education, the Board of Trustees, and the Commission on Promotion and Cultivation. He also served as a member of the Ewha University (Korea) Foundation from 1972 to 1982.

John Seybert (1791-1860), American minister and pioneer bishop of the Evangelical Association, was born near Manheim, Pennsylvania, on July 7, 1791. In 1804, his parents joined the followers of Jacob Albright, founder of the Evangelical Association. After a remarkable conversion on June 21, 1810, John Seybert united with the Albright People at Manheim. He entered the ministry in 1820 and became an ardent builder and first bishop of the church Albright had founded. Seybert's diaries (eighteen volumes) yield these amazing figures: 175,000 miles (horseback, 1820-1842; one-horse wagon, 1843-1860); and 46,000 pastoral visits. He saw the church grow from one to eight conferences. On the eve of an epochal era of expansion in the late 1830's, as a bachelor minister, he declared his desire to be found at the front. In 1838, organized missionary societies arose through his inspiration. He was president of the parent society when elected bishop in 1839. Forthwith he directed the attention of his workers to the German settlements of the Northwest Territory. With the dearth of German reading material in the west, Bishop Seybert in 1842 loaded his wagon at the publishing house in New Berlin, Pennsylvania, with an order of 23,725 volumes, charged to his account, and delivered these books to ministers in Ohio and westward. The fruit of Seybert's labor was in evidence throughout the church in his time. From New York to Iowa, his wagon carried him and his books. His journeys ended at a revival meeting appointment at a church near Flat Rock, Ohio, where he died on January 4, 1860. He is buried in the church cemetery.

John Philip Newman was born in New York City on September 1, 1826. Without any significant formal education, he entered the Onedia Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1849.

Newman married Angeline Ensign in 1855, and after a number of appointments was transferred to the New York Annual Conference where he successfully served two of the largest churches in New York City between the years of 1859 to 1864. During 1860 he traveled extensively throught the Near East and Europe which produced the book, "From Dan to Beersheba."

From 1864 to 1869 Newman was assigned to New Orleans to establish the Methodist Episcopal Church in the south. In 1869 he was appointed to the newly erected Metropolitan Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. It was here that he became pastor to President Ulysses S. Grant, his family, as well as other high placed government leaders. He served three terms as Chaplain of the United States Senate in addition to his denominational responsibilities. In 1871-1872 he traveled to Greenland on the naval ship U.S. Congress, and shared in the beginning voyage of the naval ship U.S. Polaris as it prepared for its trip to the North Pole.

Upon Newman's return President Grant appointed him Inspector of U.S. Consulates in Asia and in that office traveled around the world. In 1876- 1879 he again served as pastor of the Metropolitan Church. His next pastorate, 1879-1882, was in the Central Church in New York City where Grant became a trustee

For a third time he returned as pastor of the Metropolitan Church, and served there until he was elected a bishop in 1888. His episcopal responsibilities took him not only on assignments in this country, but also to Japan, South America, Mexico, Scandinavia, and Russia. The Newmans had great interest in Jerusalem and provided through their estate enough funds and property in 1911 to allow the Board of Missions to establish in 1928 the Newman School of Missions in Jerusalem.

Bishop John Philip Newman died on July 5, 1899 in Saratoga, New York and was buried in Mechanicville, New York.