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Reverend Jose Ynés Perea, our
nation’s first ordained Hispanic minister, was Placitas’s first
Presbyterian pastor. He visited the village intermittently between
1882 and 1894 and officiated at its founding on February 24,
1894.
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Reverend John Menaul was Placitas’s second pastor. He preached
intermittently between 1882 and the founding of the Las Placitas
Presbyterian Church in 1894, then was in charge of the newly
established church until 1901.
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Epifanio Arreola, a Mexican-born Presbyterian evangelist, preached
regularly in Placitas from 1890 to 1894. He officiated at the
organization of Las Placitas Presbyterian Church in 1894 and,
together with the Reverends Jose Ynés Perea and John Menaul, was largely responsible for its founding.
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Juan Baros was born on October 23, 1870 in Las Placitas. He became a
charter member of the Las Placitas Presbyterian Church at the age of
24 and was ordained one of its first two elders by the Reverend
James Menaul. He served the congregation at Las Placitas from
1894 until his death in 1914.
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Reverend Henry C. Thomson preached at our church between 1904 and 1906,
while he was pastor of Second Church in Albuquerque and editor of
the Synod paper La Aurora.
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Reverend Juan Quintana served Las Placitas in 1904,
1909-1911, 1922-23. In May 1904 he began preaching in
Placitas while Mrs. Quintana taught at the public school in the
village. They moved away in 1905. In 1909 the
Presbytery ordained him to the ministry and he returned to Placitas
to take full charge of that church as well as other area
Presbyterian Churches.
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Reverend John Mordy was appointed by the Rio Grande Presbytery to minister to Placitas
in 1913. During his ministry in Placitas he oversaw the renovating
of the little mission schoolhouse into a proper church, and the
Session agreed, for the first time, to ask members to give a monthly
contribution for the minister’s salary.
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Joseph W. Winder, John D. ”Uncle” Henry, and M.B.S.
Legare all served Placitas as Sunday School Missionaries during
the second decade of the twentieth century, from 1911
to 1917.
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Reverend Victoriano Valdez served Las Placitas until
1922. In 1917 he was called to take charge of the Spanish Churches
in Albuquerque and Placitas, and area preaching stations.
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Reverend Acorcinio Lucero accepted the call from the Spanish Presbyterian
Church in Los Martinez of Albuquerque in 1922 and
served both that church and Placitas until 1927.
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Reverend Paul Livingstone Warnshuis served as pastor at Second Church and Placitas
from 1927 to 1929. His energetic efforts earned him the nickname “Mr.
Warnshoes.”
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Reverend George P. Simmonds
accepted the call of the Presbyterian National Missions Board to become the
pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church in Albuquerque, the Las
Placitas Presbyterian Church, and the Spanish Presbyterian Church in
Santa Fe in 1930. He served here until 1935.
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Victor Manuel Sandoval assisted Rev Simmonds in Placitas and after
Simmonds left, Don Manuel (as he was called) took full charge of the
Placitas Church until 1937.
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Reverend Porfirio Romero
preached at Las Placitas from 1932
to 1935.
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Reverend Jose Ines Candelaria had
charge of four churches at the same time—Second Presbyterian
Church, Alameda, Bernalillo, and Placitas. He served Las Placitas
from 1937 to 1952.
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Reverend Antonio Jiménez, a Methodist
evangelist from Las Cruces, arrived in June 1950 to assist Reverend
Candelaria with the Placitas, Bernalillo and Alameda churches. It
was Candelaria who persuaded Jiménez
to come to preach at Placitas at a time when he felt the community
was badly in need of a restoration of hope and faith. After serving
for a year and a half, he returned to Las Cruces.
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Reverend Kenneth J. Green came to serve
the Placitas, Bernalillo, and Alameda churches in 1951. For
three years he successfully carried on the pastorate of the three
small congregations. He resigned his position in 1955 because of his
wife’s health.
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Reverend Rodolfo Torres replaced Rev. Green and served the Placitas,
Bernalillo, and Alameda congregations for two years. He served the
three churches faithfully, although it was hardly the restful
semi-retirement he had envisioned. He conducted three services every
Sunday, preaching in Alameda in the morning, in Placitas in the
afternoon, and in Bernalillo in the evening.
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Reverend Harry Willson came to New Mexico “sight unseen directly from
Princeton Theological Seminary in the spring of 1958. He served the
Placitas and Alameda churches for eight years. In 1967 he left the
ministry and for a while worked almost full time for the Civil
Rights Movement.
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Reverend David Hammack served
both the Placitas and Alameda Churches for three years. He left
the these churches in September 1970 and remained in
Albuquerque, starting an electrical contracting business. He designed and
installed the electrical system for the 1984 addition to our church.
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Reverend Floyd B. Sovereign served
the Las Placitas Presbyterian Church as Temporary Supply for several
periods (1966, 1970 - 1972) while the church was between
regular pastors.
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Reverend George Adams served churches in the Orient for
45 years. He came to our church in 1972 and served for eight years.
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Reverend Tomas Gonzalez served the Las Placitas Presbyterian Church
in one way or another since he was a member of the Menaul
Gospel Team in the mid1930s until 1995. Although he has never been its
official pastor, he has filled in on countless occasions as guest
preacher, and during the 1970s he often came out to give special
services in Spanish for the older Spanish-speaking members of the
congregation.
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Reverend James R. Anderson came to Placitas in 1980 as Interim Pastor
and on March 6, 1983 he was called to the fulltime pastorate of our church.
In Nov. 1994 he announced he would retire on Jan. 31, 1995.
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Reverend Jane P. Harmes came to our church in
1996. After
an exhaustive search (140 applicants), our congregation voted
unanimously to accept Reverend Harmes as our new pastor on July 7, 1996.
She took up her duties on September 16, 1996. During her time
with us, we made a covenant with the earth,
a peacemaking covenant,
joined The
Covenant Network of Presbyterians and
we built a new Sunday School wing with handicapped accessible
bathrooms and spacious offices.
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Rev. Ken Cuthbertson, served as our parish associate from Jan,
2005 to Sept 30, 2007. Rev. Cuthbertson was instrumental in
restoring the Upper Room to it's original
chapel status. He served as the temporary supply
pastor on a part-time basis until our transitional Pastor, Rev.
Elizabeth Lyman, arrived on January 15, 2008.
