The document introduces the board of trustees for the MidAmerica Region of the Unitarian Universalist Association for the 2014-2015 year. Each board member provides a short biography and answers two questions: 1) What have they discovered about the MidAmerica Region through their board service? and 2) What social justice issues have engaged them over time? The board members represent UU congregations across the Midwestern United States.

1. Board of Trustees
2014-15
The MidAmerica Region, UUA, where UUs
visibly live our faith,
create connections,
grow our membership,
welcome all persons who share our
UU values.

2. Bill Sasso
President
Q What have you discovered about the MidAmerica
Region in your board service?
A It's exciting to realize the added potential that
MidAmerica has relative to our predecessor districts. We
now have "critical mass" with respect to many aspects of
the work of the religious community, and our Board and
Staff have an open mind about experimenting with new
ways to support our congregations!
Q What social justice area, issue, focus, or concern has
engaged you over time?
A While I have been involved in racial justice as well as
environmental work over the long term, perhaps the
most significant area of my personal engagement has
been with efforts to achieve equality for people of all
sexual orientations and gender identities. This has
included helping to found Carbondale's Rainbow Café (a
safe space for GLBTQ youth and allies) in 2000 as well
as demonstrating in support of marriage equality in front
of the Illinois Statehouse in October, 2013.
Carbondale Unitarian Fellowship, Carbondale, Illinois

3. Eric Huffer
Secretary
Q What have you discovered about the MidAmerica Region in your
board service?
A In my time on the MidAmerica Board, I have seen how much our
region shares in common, like the similar struggles of the
unemployed factory workers in Detroit and Ohio, and the miners in
Kentucky, or how many of our congregations have large
geographic distances between them and another UU
congregation. I also am a little surprised at how much our region
seems to share a unique mid-western mindset, and this helps to
affirm my belief that the move to consolidate into a region was the
right one for us to make.
Q What social justice area, issue, focus, or concern has engaged
you over time?
A The social justice issue that most moves me currently is the
struggle for marriage equality. I am excited that we may be near
the day where it is the "law of the land.” I am also deeply
concerned by the growing wealth and opportunity gap that is
occurring in our country, and I am hopeful that we can find a way
forward through that.
Unitarian Universalist Church of Lexington
Lexington, Kentucky

4. Tom Sommerfeld
Treasurer
Q What have you discovered about the
MidAmerica Region in your board service?
A I hadn't realized that all the state names
referred to Native peoples one way or
another.
Q What social justice area, issue, focus, or
concern has engaged you over time?
A Civil Rights in its many forms.
Northwoods Unitarian Universalist
Fellowship
Woodruff, Wisconsin

5. Cynthia Landrum
Trustee
Q What have you discovered about the MidAmerica Region in
your board service?
A We are stronger together! With our amazing staff, we really
are building the new era of Unitarian Universalism. Our UUA
is paying attention and engaged with us on our quest.
Q What social justice area, issue, focus, or concern has
engaged you over time?
A Marriage Equality has been one issue I've been engaged in
for about two decades. In the last year, many of the states of
our MidAmerica Region saw great leaps forward, which has
been so wonderful! This year my state of Michigan had a brief
moment of marriage equality where our UU ministers together
really made a difference, and I was pleased to be part of that
story and telling that story to our larger movement.
Universalist Unitarian Church of East Liberty
Clarklake, Jackson County, Michigan

6. Dave Martin
Trustee
Q What have you discovered about the
MidAmerica Region in your board service?
A Wonderful committed people
Q What social justice area, issue, focus, or
concern has engaged you over time?
A I am president of Iowa City Foreign
Relations Council. We bring speakers to
the area to discuss international relations
via a series of luncheons throughout the
year.
Unitarian Universalist Society
Iowa City, Iowa

7. Kyrie Bock
Trustee
Q What have you discovered about the
MidAmerica Region in your board service?
A What inspiring people, congregations, and
communities are taking major actions and
making significant impacts across the Region.
Q What social justice area, issue, focus, or
concern has engaged you over time?
A The focus I see over time that has me
engaged is heightened collaboration and
communication between congregations across
the region for strengthening communities.
Unity Temple Unitarian Church
Chicago, Illinois

8. Doug Cauble
Vice President
Q What have you discovered about the MidAmerica
Region in your board service?
A The nearly two hundred churches in the
MidAmerican Region are variations on a wonderful
theme, distinct yet homogenous. The linkage that
MidAmerica can help facilitate between each unique
group will provide many opportunities.Exciting times…
Q What social justice area, issue, focus, or concern
has engaged you over time?
A I've been involved with a Community Kitchen and
Food Pantry in Bean Blossom, Indiana for the past 15
years. Mother's Cupboard serves an average of 175
free hot meals every day, no questions asked. We
have no government or specific faith based funding.
We exist because of the generosity of our neighbors.
No one should ever be hungry…
Unitarian Universalist Church of Bloomington
Bloomington, Indiana

9. Janis Cheney
Trustee
Q What have you discovered about the
MidAmerica Region in your board service?
A While the MidAmerica region is large and
diverse, our shared focus on living our UU
principles and working to strengthen and enhance
our faith communities is a powerful and unifying
force. Through that work, we can be an even
stronger force for good in the world.
Q What social justice area, issue, focus, or
concern has engaged you over time?
A Unfortunately, there are far too many issues and
injustices to choose from! I find myself primarily
drawn to protecting the environment, to addressing
issues of poverty / economic inequality, and to
protecting women's rights and health care.
Bismarck-Mandan Unitarian Universalist
Bismarck, ND

10. Ian Evison
Ex Officio
Q What have you discovered about the MidAmerica Region in your
board service?
Board service helped me stretch my understanding of who we are
in a MidAmerica that is both more diverse and more unified than I
ever imagined. I made trips to Bismarck and Louisville Fall 2014.
Very different worlds and yet literally under the surface, deep
connections as the boom in fracking in the Bakkan Oils Fields in
North Dakota and the decline in coal mining in Eastern Kentucky
since 2011 are very much parts of the same story.
Q What social justice focus has engaged you over time?
I ponder how I as an individual and we as a movement “show up”
where it is hard to show up. It was powerful to be part of our UU
contingents at the Marriage Equality rallies in Minnesota and Illinois
state capitals, part of the mass of those in yellow Standing on the Side
of Love shirts. A sermon by Rev. Ashley Horan asked how are we
going to follow up on these victories in marriage equality by “showing
up” in places that may be even harder for us? How do we “show up”
when race and economic injustice are involved? How do we “show up”
where we need to think not of what the UU response should be, but
rather that we need to follow the lead of others?
Beverly Unitarian Church
Chicago, IL

11. https://www.MidAmericaUUA.org