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It is our pleasure to welcome Rev. Donna Hughes-Hargraves to our church family this morning. Donna has been an ordained United Methodist Minister for 16 years and recently completed her first year as the Executive Director of United Protestant Campus Ministries of Cleveland (UPCaM). Prior to coming to Cleveland, she served churches in Iowa for seven years and in the Dakotas for ten years. During her stay in the Dakotas, Rev. Hughes-Hargraves served rural churches and was a campus minister in Rapid City, South Dakota. As campus minister, she enjoyed taking students on international mission trips and involving the university in opportunities for community volunteering.
It's safe to say that Donna's career before entering the seminary was not typical of a United Methodist clergyperson. She received a bachelor's degree in Animal Health Management and a Master's degree in Horse Science. She worked at Texas A&M in student affairs while a part-time senior high youth director.
Pastor Donna shares that her most life-changing experience occurred in 1988-89 when she taught English in China. In her words, "that year gave me the courage to try anything" and a "big-time travel bug". She has taken six international work-mission trips with college students, visited every state but Alaska and Hawaii and, in addition to China, has visited South India, Russia, Lithuania, England, France, Egypt, Israel/Palestine, Mexico, Belize, Egypt, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Guatemala.
The desert southwest is the place of her birth and youth and she misses living in that part of the world. Her kids are two cats, Keyana and Rueben, and a dog named Rufus. She loves reading mysteries, watching movies of any kind, traveling the world (of course), participating in and teaching yoga, eating weird and interesting foods, and dreaming of owning a horse once again.
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