Alcena Boozer: One foot in the world, and one in the church by Maureen Mackey She sits in the small church office, a closet full of vestments behind her an ancient typewriter on the desk I beside. 8.he is dressed completely in black, reheved only by a white collar and the warm smile that lights her face. This is Deacon Alcena Boozer of St. Philip the Deacon Episcopal ' Church in North Portland. But there is another Alcena Boozer, a vice-princ::ipal at Portland's Grant High 5ch,ocl, in charge of counseling and sharing responsibility for the discipline of the students. To fulfill both roles she works seven days a week, and often evenings as well. . "I have no problem being bl-vocational," said Boozer (MA '74) who also is on the PSU Alumni • Scholarships committee. "It enhances my ability to administer to people. My skills and training as an educator are applicable to the church." . The road Boozer, 44, took to get where she is today was not an easy one. It started when she was an undergraduate at PSU in the late 1950's. In those pre-Civil Rights Movement days al Portland SIal.. College, black people were aU but unknown on the tiny, young campus. "You couldn't not feel a sense of discrimination at the time in the Northwest or the country," she recalls. "You realized you were alone. I could go all day in my cl~sses .without seeing another mInority member." That drew the black students who were on campus together, she said. and they used to meet and talk. "We debated a lot on what was the role of the minority person, the responsibilities," she said. "By the time I was a sophomore I began to sense that there were dues to be paid to the community by those who had an education." It was a while, though, before she was able to make those payments. She dropped out of school in 1960 to marry James Boozer, intending to return shortly to finish her degree. She became ill briefly, and then the couple had two sons, a year apart, both born with handicaps. The elder, Bentley, was diagnosed autistic the same week infant Clark went into the hospital for surgery to save his sight. Clark's eyes were afflicted with bilateral glaucoma. The operation preserved the vision of one eye. 8 lOIN PSU flYING CLUB \Iumn! Benellh C.ud 229-4948 ~nF= Boozer ('74 MA) brings communion to nursing home resident do::: ottter .h~'::':r:v:r':"."::~ words before she must be off to see 8 hIIH Boozer recalls she was "ove.rwhelmed" at that time, and ~~:s~~g ~~~1~~~~V:~; ~~erl~I' sacrament." Her concern was heightened by the small number of clergy at ber church, who had to Last Thanksgiving the parish worked on providing a holiday meal to t~e .Burnside community. The parishioners realized that many people might be reluctant to enter a church, even-tor,food, said Boozer, ~o they decided to package the meal In containers and bring it to the people directly. "It made a marked impact on the volunteers to see someone about to eat from a garbage can, and offer them a full dinner with all the ~ trimmings," she said. There are times when both of her vocations frustrate her, the poor whose numbers never diminish the students who seem bent on ' setf-destruction despite her counseling. "But I keep working," she said. "Maybe I'm hard-headed. But you never know when it does work." She was heartened recently by a visit from a former student of whom she once despaired. certain he would wind up in jailor worse. Not only was he doing well, but he thanked her for her help years earlier. There is a dilemma in her own mind, she says, which she works 10 solve: "NT! I a preacher who realized it was part of the toughening process," she said. Handling the difficult behavior of her autistic child prepared her for anything she could encounter as a counselor, she added. A quiet commitment to serve. .. It was a decade later before she finished her degree, through a teacher education program run in Portland by Oregon State University. In 1970 she earned her bachelor's degree in social studies education from OSU, and was hired as a teacher at Grant High, after having served there as an intern the previous year. She returned to PSU to complete a masters program in counseling in 1974, enabling her to become a counselor at Grant. Then in 1980 she went back again for certification in educational administration, n.eces~'Y for her appointment as vlce-pnnclpal. It was also during the seventies that her religious vocation began to surface. Her call to the church was latent during most of her life, she says, mainly because of circumstances. "As a youngster growing up it was just suppressed .. said Boozer, since at that time ' women were not accepted as clergy in the Episcopal Church. "Once you perceive a call you find out it has been in the process a long time," she said. "I started recognizing it when I became concerned about how the sick and elderly would receive the schedule visiting the homebound in with their other duties. She became a lay reader, reading the texts to the congregation on Sundays, to explore her vocation. "I had to test out in my mind if I was really ~oing it for the right reason," she said. "If I was doing it only because it was a novelty for females, that would be the wrong reason." In 1976 she began training for the deaconate, a position ranking just below a priest's in the Episcopal Church. She was ordained a deacon in 1979. Her assignment was to St. Philip's, the church in which she was baptized, married, and saw her own children baptized. For a year she served as interim rector until the Rev. Ramsey Schadewitz arrived. Also at SI. Philip's she has quietly developed a new ministry for the church, collecting food for the transient people who gather under the bridges and in the doorways of Burnside Avenue. All the parishioners contribute to the food drives, she said. "People here understand that whatever they have, they must share," says Boozer of the 200 families and individuals on the parish rolls. "In lieu of floral displays on Christmas and other high feast days, we gather food." teaches, or a teacher who preaches? That's how I see Ihe deaconate one foot in the world, and one in 1m; church." . Black clergy are slill in the minority in the Episcopal ChurCh, which concerns Boozer. She serves an a national commiHee to recruit more black priests and deacons. Currently she said, there are only 350 black ' clergy in the church, over half of whom are 45 years of age or older. In Ihe past five years since women have been ordained to the priesthood, she added, out of 500 only 84 have been black. Boo:zer is now considering entering the priesthood herself. Doing so would mean temporarily moving from her neighborhood and Portland - for the first time in her life. The thought does not perturb her. "As I get older I realize that the only thing constant about life is change," she said. Maureen Mackey ;s a Beavenon-based free- ~;~~:~::a~ho wrote this article eKclusively for
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