Thursday, October 5, 2006

Senator John Danforth Honoree at the 2006 Blessing of the Crush

Danforth represented the State of Missouri in the United States Senate for 18 years and served on three key committees: Finance; Commerce, Science and Transportation; and the Select Committee on Intelligence. He was nominated to serve as President Bush’s Representative to the United Nations in 2004, and in 2001, the president had appointed him Special Envoy for Peace to Sudan in northern Africa.

A fifth generation Missourian, Danforth was born on September 5, 1936 in St. Louis, and raised in nearby Clayton. He received his secondary education a St. Louis Country Day School and graduated with honors from Princeton University in 1958. In 1963 he received a Bachelor of Divinity degree form Yale Divinity School and a Bachelor of Laws degree from Yale Law School. Before seeking public office, Danforth practiced law in New York City and St. Louis.

He is ordained to the clergy of the Episcopal Church. He has served as honorary associate at St. Alban’s Church in Washington, a member of the governing board of Washington Cathedral, honorary Canon of Christ Church Cathedral in St. Louis, associate priest at the Church of the Holy Communion in University City, assistant rector at the Church of St. Michael and St. George in Clayton, associate rector of Grace Episcopal Church in Jefferson City, assistant rector at the Church of the Epiphany in New York City, and assistant chaplain for New York’s Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Danforth and his wife, the former Sally Dobson of St. Louis, live in St. Louis County.

They have five children and thirteen grandchildren.