Editor's Note: Every so often we feature a story such as this one about one of our classmates from the Class of 58. We continually get questions about members of our class who may not have attended recent reunions or have simply wandered quietly away those many years ago to somewhere in adulthood. While Joy probably doesn't fall into this category (she attended our 1983 reunion) it's been a long time since we heard from her. I recently corresponded with Joy and asked her to write this story, in part, to satisfy my own curiosity about where she has been all these years. She was a good friend at SHS and helped me get through some of my clumsy stages of late adolescence and teenage goofiness. And so imagine my shouts of ecstatic joy (no pun intended) when I received this autobiography from her just a few days ago. After reading her story, I think you will agree that she has definitely lived up to her wonderful first name, bringing Joy to so many of her friends and parishioners and to her family. I hope you will find Joy (yes, a somewhat large pun intended here) reading about Whatever Happened to Joy Utter all of these years since graduation. Greetings from Kingston, Rhode Island which has been home since 1976. After Hanover College in Indiana (B.A. in Music and English '61) and Ohio University in Athens, Ohio (M.Ed.'63) where I also taught music for two years, I lived, taught, and raised two sons, Eric and Matthew, in Indiana (Wabash, Culver, and West Lafayette) and then moved to Newark, Delaware where I lived for six years before moving to the smallest state in the U.S. and close to the ocean. I love this part of the world! Soon after moving to Rhode Island, I realized that my calling to the ministry, which I had claimed since SHS in a variety of forms, was leading me to Andover-Newton and seminary. So I spent four years commuting to the Boston area while balancing the parenting of two teens and working as Minister of Education at the Kingston Congregational Church UCC where I was ordained in 1983. Since ordination, I was first a minister in two rural
churches while also Seekonk is really a suburb of Providence. We have a vital and creative church of close to 500 members and 250 babies/children/youth where, as Senior Minister, I have a great staff of ten and give thanks for many positive leaders. Editor's Note: You can check out the church's Web Site and see how Joy spends about 80 hours a week!!! I remarried in 1988 to the Rev. Dr. H. Daehler Hayes who serves as the Conference Minister for the Rhode Island Conference of the UCC - and between us we have four grandchildren and one due in May of 2000. I retained my birth name. As my spouse says, "neither of us changed our names!" Three years ago, we bought a large and very old (1750/1820) colonial home in Kingston Village which would take the rest of several lifetimes to restore, but it lends itself to my grandparents' and other antiques, and we anticipate a Retreat Center and other uses after we retire. We love to travel, usually roughing it on our own and never with reservations (!) We've explored places like Nepal, India, Thailand, Singapore, Japan, Turkey, Greece, Italy, England, Scotland, Wales, Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Hungary, Mexico, Ecuador, Bolivia. We even went to Machu Picchu in Peru and celebrated Elsa Brookfield's many references to that incredible place. Our churches have partnerships with a group of faith communities in both Haiti and Korea, so we have spent much time over the years there as well. I could write volumes about that, as well as a book I hope to complete on worship celebrations in the not too distant future. It has been great to re-connect with Mark and Barb and to be in touch with the past through this amazing SHS58 site. Aging definitely teaches us what is truly important in life, and good memories revisited are part of that truth! I'm grateful for all the work Bill has done in this endeavor. I have E-mail, so I hope to hear from '58 classmates... Editor's Note: Joy invites you to contact her at her E-mail address, but if you'd like to correspond with her via US Mail, please contact us and we'll let you know her mailing address. Her E-mail address is: © 2003 SHS Class of '58
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working on the staff of the
Rhode Island Conference of the United Church of Christ
(UCC) in Educational Resources and Programming.
Then I was called 14 years ago to ministry at the
Seekonk Congregational Church UCC, which is in
Massachusetts, but is a part of the Rhode Island group
of churches. 