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People Profile -- New Episcopalian pastor looks forward to anniversaries
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| Father David Ottsen and his church will be marking several anniversaries May 3. Banner-Press/Bud Chambers |
By Bud Chambers/Staff Reporter
Father David Ottsen and wife, Deborah, made their major move south to Brenham Feb. 1 after serving a church near South Bend, Ind., for the past 11 years.
Now in less than two months leading the flock at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, while he and his wife have already become acquainted with quite a few of Washington County’s positives — Ottsen is thoughtfully looking well beyond a first season of this area’s colorful bluebonnets to a very special day of celebration upcoming May 3.
That is when one of this county’s oldest church congregations will have its 160th birthday party — a celebration of the founding of Brenham’s St. Peter’s Episcopal Church congregation May 3, 1848.
And it will become a super special “personal milestone day” for Father Ottsen in that this Brenham church anniversary will be combined with Ottsen’s official recognition as 30th rector of historic St. Peter’s Episcopal Church; and, not coincidentally, also with Ottsen’s 25th anniversary of ordination as an Episcopal minister.
Beginning with an Iowa birthplace and a move to Cornhusker-land early on where his father, G. Maurice Ottsen was beginning an age 40s-something entry into the Episcopal ministry — a career, amazingly, that would then span over 50-plus years even into this 21st century — young David Ottsen recalls that, in the career-decision period of his own life, he was rather determined to become “anything other than a minister.”
But a wry smile on his face during a recent “People Profile” interview, Ottsen suggested, “Obviously, God had other plans for me.”
Teaching and coaching
But indeed, the David Ottsen career plan took hold at least initially — as following his junior high and high school years in Nebraska City, he matriculated to Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and entered into a rather interesting and diverse choice of major fields, the combination of political science and physical education.
Following college graduation with these two majors in 1974, Ottsen then became a public school teacher in social studies and physical education in the M-F-L Community School System and living in Monona, Iowa.
For most of five years teaching and coaching in these small schools, he would begin the day teaching junior high social studies; later in the day moving to an elementary campus to teach physical education; and then completing a busy day with a transition back to a high school campus to pursue coaching duties at the secondary level.
David and Deborah met when both were students at Coe College and they were married shortly after each completed their degrees there in late spring 1974.
Deborah has utilized many of the couple’s career stops to attain a total of three degrees over the years — after her initial history major at Coe College, she earned a master’s degree in library science from the relatively nearby University of Iowa during the couple’s five-year stint in Monana.
And then, some years later, after David had given in to God’s plan for him to enter the Episcopal ministry, Deborah took advantage of a six-year period living near Tulsa, Okla. to earn a second Master’s degree — this one a rather big switch from her other study fields; this one being in Industrial Organizational Psychology.
It is this career field of human resources that Deborah has now pursued for more than a decade as a major business opportunity; now including bringing some industrial clients, mostly medium to small-in-size businesses, with her to Brenham to assist these firms in various aspects of their human resources-communications requirements.
And baby makes three
By the time David could no longer put off God’s strong call to become a minister, the Ottsen family had grown to number three — having added one-year-old Carrie — by the time they moved from Monona all the way to Austin, Texas, where David earned his ministerial credentials at Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest, 1979-82.
Following these studies, the Ottsen family spent at least a dozen years in three Oklahoma assignments before David accepted a challenge to found a new Episcopal congregation in South Bend, Ind.
And while this daunting challenge was ultimately abandoned within two years, it led a faithful Father Ottsen to still another small church — St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Mishawaka, adjacent to South Bend — and there an effectively part-time church situation would be led to blossom into a congregation three/four times its original size.
Tracing back to cover Ottsen’s effectively “first half” of a soon 25-years in the ministry, he left the Austin seminary and accepted the following challenges over those dozen years in Oklahoma:
Three years, 1982-85, in Stillwater as assistant to the church’s rector.
Three more years, 1985-88, Canon of the Cathedral in Oklahoma City.
Rector of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Broken Arrow (a Tulsa suburb), 1988-94.
One of the several major pluses to now enjoying life in south central Texas is that Deborah’s mother, Joan Usher, resides a few hours south near the border — and Deborah is in the process of bringing her mother to Brenham for an inaugural visit to the land of Bluebonnets during the current Easter season.
Along the way, Ottsen — who still is something of an athletics coach at heart (and also “big fan” of his native state’s Nebraska Cornhuskers) — continues to be a big fan of several sports, and especially enjoys jogging.
Indeed, inspired by the running of his sister — seven years older and who once ran The Paris Marathon — David ran and completed Minneapolis Marathons in both 2005 and 2006.
No, Ottsen isn’t planning to run any more marathons in the near future, but he and Deborah are looking forward to a very special long trip in mid-May — to watch daughter Carrie receive her master’s degree in French from the University of Illinois.
A happy-to-be-settling here in Brenham, Ottsen says, with a laugh, “Everybody in the family will have more degrees than me.”
Now in less than two months leading the flock at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, while he and his wife have already become acquainted with quite a few of Washington County’s positives — Ottsen is thoughtfully looking well beyond a first season of this area’s colorful bluebonnets to a very special day of celebration upcoming May 3.
That is when one of this county’s oldest church congregations will have its 160th birthday party — a celebration of the founding of Brenham’s St. Peter’s Episcopal Church congregation May 3, 1848.
And it will become a super special “personal milestone day” for Father Ottsen in that this Brenham church anniversary will be combined with Ottsen’s official recognition as 30th rector of historic St. Peter’s Episcopal Church; and, not coincidentally, also with Ottsen’s 25th anniversary of ordination as an Episcopal minister.
Beginning with an Iowa birthplace and a move to Cornhusker-land early on where his father, G. Maurice Ottsen was beginning an age 40s-something entry into the Episcopal ministry — a career, amazingly, that would then span over 50-plus years even into this 21st century — young David Ottsen recalls that, in the career-decision period of his own life, he was rather determined to become “anything other than a minister.”
But a wry smile on his face during a recent “People Profile” interview, Ottsen suggested, “Obviously, God had other plans for me.”
Teaching and coaching
But indeed, the David Ottsen career plan took hold at least initially — as following his junior high and high school years in Nebraska City, he matriculated to Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and entered into a rather interesting and diverse choice of major fields, the combination of political science and physical education.
Following college graduation with these two majors in 1974, Ottsen then became a public school teacher in social studies and physical education in the M-F-L Community School System and living in Monona, Iowa.
For most of five years teaching and coaching in these small schools, he would begin the day teaching junior high social studies; later in the day moving to an elementary campus to teach physical education; and then completing a busy day with a transition back to a high school campus to pursue coaching duties at the secondary level.
David and Deborah met when both were students at Coe College and they were married shortly after each completed their degrees there in late spring 1974.
Deborah has utilized many of the couple’s career stops to attain a total of three degrees over the years — after her initial history major at Coe College, she earned a master’s degree in library science from the relatively nearby University of Iowa during the couple’s five-year stint in Monana.
And then, some years later, after David had given in to God’s plan for him to enter the Episcopal ministry, Deborah took advantage of a six-year period living near Tulsa, Okla. to earn a second Master’s degree — this one a rather big switch from her other study fields; this one being in Industrial Organizational Psychology.
It is this career field of human resources that Deborah has now pursued for more than a decade as a major business opportunity; now including bringing some industrial clients, mostly medium to small-in-size businesses, with her to Brenham to assist these firms in various aspects of their human resources-communications requirements.
And baby makes three
By the time David could no longer put off God’s strong call to become a minister, the Ottsen family had grown to number three — having added one-year-old Carrie — by the time they moved from Monona all the way to Austin, Texas, where David earned his ministerial credentials at Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest, 1979-82.
Following these studies, the Ottsen family spent at least a dozen years in three Oklahoma assignments before David accepted a challenge to found a new Episcopal congregation in South Bend, Ind.
And while this daunting challenge was ultimately abandoned within two years, it led a faithful Father Ottsen to still another small church — St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Mishawaka, adjacent to South Bend — and there an effectively part-time church situation would be led to blossom into a congregation three/four times its original size.
Tracing back to cover Ottsen’s effectively “first half” of a soon 25-years in the ministry, he left the Austin seminary and accepted the following challenges over those dozen years in Oklahoma:
One of the several major pluses to now enjoying life in south central Texas is that Deborah’s mother, Joan Usher, resides a few hours south near the border — and Deborah is in the process of bringing her mother to Brenham for an inaugural visit to the land of Bluebonnets during the current Easter season.
Along the way, Ottsen — who still is something of an athletics coach at heart (and also “big fan” of his native state’s Nebraska Cornhuskers) — continues to be a big fan of several sports, and especially enjoys jogging.
Indeed, inspired by the running of his sister — seven years older and who once ran The Paris Marathon — David ran and completed Minneapolis Marathons in both 2005 and 2006.
No, Ottsen isn’t planning to run any more marathons in the near future, but he and Deborah are looking forward to a very special long trip in mid-May — to watch daughter Carrie receive her master’s degree in French from the University of Illinois.
A happy-to-be-settling here in Brenham, Ottsen says, with a laugh, “Everybody in the family will have more degrees than me.”
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