Newly ordained Episcopal Priests include (l-r) Michael Bell, Dixie Junk and Antoinette Tackkett. Bell is a campus missioner living in Manhattan. Junk is the priest-in-charge at St. Paul’s in Kansas City, Kan. Tackkett is serving as an itinerant priest until June, traveling each month to a different church in southeast Kansas. Right Reverend Dean Wolfe (back) ordained the three new priests.
For Antoinette Tackkett the call to service started at a young age and her career choices meant breaking some stereotypes. “As a young teenager, I felt a great calling to ministry work. But in those days, women weren’t allowed to do that,” said Tackkett. “I also wanted to be a police officer and women didn’t do that profession much either.” The stereotypes didn’t stop Tackkett from her desire to serve the community. She spent 11 years working as a police officer before making a change to education. She has spent the past 12 years teaching Spanish, criminal justice and sociology at Coffeyville Community College. As she grew older, Tackkett realized that the calling to the ministry was still there and she couldn’t ignore it any longer. She started the process toward priesthood in 2002. “Because our Diocese is rural and many parishes are small and can’t afford to hire a full-time priest, there is more of a need for priests who are bi-vocational and who serve the church without being paid or getting paid in a small sum,” said Tackkett. Tackkett intends to continue her work at the college and serve the Episcopal Church on the weekends. To become a priest, Tackkett attended the Kansas Episcopal School of Ministry. She will finish her classes in May of 2011 and has been assigned to travel the southeast section of Kansas to all the Episcopal churches and serve for a month at each. She has already served in Pittsburg, Independence, Neodesha, Parsons, Sedan and Coffeyville. She will be in Galena in February followed by Chanute, Iola and Yates Center. At that time she will be assigned to a church of her own. Tackkett hopes to be a part of a new, revitalized Christian community that honors all people and accepts them as they are. “We are all flawed in some way, but if we recognize that all people are created by God and if we can look beyond the flaws and see the gifts, each of us working together can help others in need and extend the love of Christ to everyone we meet,” she said. Tackkett also believes we should help those in other countries, especially when disaster strikes. Tackkett was ordained as an Episcopal Priest on January 8, 2011. Whether on the police force, working with college students or now in the ministry, Tackketts life has the common thread of serving others.