Galligan retiring from church

The public is invited to attend Father Joe and Ellen Galligan's retirement barbecue on Saturday, June 29 from 11:30 a.m. until 2 p.m. on the lawn of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church.

Joe Galligan was born and raised in the Episcopal Church, in a number of different dioceses around the country. He further explained he was born in Connecticut and was a member of the church growing up and while in the service.

He and his wife married in 1969 when he was on assignment to a naval academy as a marksmanship instructor. When he finished his tour of duty with the U.S. Marine Corps in 1970, the couple returned to Montana, which had been his family home and where he schooled before enlisting.

Joe had various jobs in various towns in Montana. In 1977 they moved to Townsend, Mont. and became part of the congregation and the community. In 1984 he was ordained first as a deacon then as a priest to serve the congregation there, having served as a lay minister for a number of years.

The congregation was tiny, Joe said, with an active membership of about 20 people. The national Episcopal Church was experimenting with ways to provide clergy for small, rural congregations isolated by factors such as economics, distance or culture. Having had trouble placing conventionally trained clergy in such places, he said, they were trying another process by allowing the congregation to discern someone from their ranks to provide leadership.

Joe was chosen through the process and was run through preparation, which continued several years after his ordination.

He noted he served the congregation in a bi-vocational capacity as he was a microbiologist with the Montana State Health Department in Helena and a non-stipendiary priest, meaning he was unpaid and voluntary.

After five years, in 1989, the new bishop asked Joe to work for the diocese and deployed him to Big Timber, Mont., where he served eight congregations in a team ministry with one or two other priests, sometimes conducting up to four church services in a weekend. He was responsible for not only sacramental and pastoral ministry, but also teaching and helping congregations. They were working to have those congregations discern leaders from their congregations as well.

In 1996, the work he was doing in Montana was wrapping up and he received a call from the Wyoming bishop to come and interview for a couple positions. He was later called to serve in Thermopolis beginning in July of 1996. "About July first of '96, we came to Thermopolis and settled in," he said of him and his family. "We've been here ever since."

In the time since, his responsibilities have changed. For some of the time, he was rector at Holy Trinity. Other times he was also rector with St. Alban's in Worland. Further, he was hired by the diocese to serve as ministry developer for the Big Horn Basin, serving Thermopolis, Worland, Basin, Powell and Meeteetse for a couple years. His responsibilities for most of the last two years have been as rector for Holy Trinity and a supply priest for the congregation in Meeteetse.

One of the highlights in his time here, because he's been dedicated to developing lay ministry, the church has established itself as a shared ministry congregation. That means they have lay people working with the clergy to carry on the life of the church. Along that journey, he noted, there has been ordination of two from the congregation – Rev. Lin Davenport, who has taken a position with the church in Gillette, and Rev. Ron Philips, who will succeed Galligan as the priest serving Holy Trinity.

The Galligans plan to stay in Thermopolis and participate in the life of the community, but will also continue to serve the churches in Meeteetse and other locations in the basin.

"It's been a very good place for us," Galligan said of Thermopolis. "It's been a joy to be here. It's been a challenge to do the ministry here. This community, for us, is the best place to be."