Episcopal Press and News
New Alabama Diocesan Is the Suffragan
Episcopal News Service. July 28, 1988 [88164]
NEW YORK (DPS, July 28) -- The Rt. Rev. Robert O. Miller, Suffragan Bishop of Alabama, has been elected diocesan bishop of that diocese to succeed Bishop Furman C. Stough, who will join the Presiding Bishop's staff as Senior Executive for Mission this fall.
Miller won the June 25 election on the second ballot. On both ballots he attracted almost double the number of voters than the second-place finisher, Bishop C. Brinkley Morton of San Diego.
Trailing way behind Miller and Morton were the Rev. Douglas M. Carpenter, rector of St. Stephen's, Birmingham, Ala.; the Rev. Fletcher Comer, rector of St. Mark's, Prattville; the Rev. Ron DelBene, director of the Hermitage, Trussville; the Rev. Jack C. Hennings, Jr., rector of Grace Church, Sheffield; the Rev. George K.G. Henry, rector of Holy Comforter, Charlotte, N.C.; the Very Rev. James L. Sanders, dean of St. John's Cathedral, Knoxville, Tenn., the Rev. Hoyt Winslett, Jr., rector of St. Paul's, Greensboro, Ala., and the Rev. John C. Buchanan, rector of St. Andrew's, Mt. Pleasant, S.C. All were nominees of the process committee, as were Miller and Morton. Nominated from the floor was the Rev. William B. Wright, rector of the Church of the Resurrection, Austin, Tex.
On the first ballot, Miller received 56 clerical and 101 lay votes; Morton received 23 clerical and 59 lay votes. On the second ballot, Miller received 70 clerical and 128 lay, and Morton received 32 clerical and 84 lay votes. Sanders accumulated 29 lay votes on the second ballot, but otherwise none of the candidates ever attracted more than 15 votes at any time.
Stough has announced that he will step down at the end of October to begin his new ministry in New York. It is expected that Miller will be installed sometime in the fall.
Miller is a graduate of Birmingham-Southern College, and he received his divinity degree in 1963 from Emory University in Atlanta. He is a former Methodist minister. From 1968 to 1970, he was priest-in-charge of St. Wilfred's, Marion, and Holy Cross, Uniontown, and he was curate and rector of Holy Comforter, Montgomery, from 1970 to 1986. He was a deputy to General Convention from 1976 to 1982. In 1986, he was elected Suffragan Bishop of Alabama.