Meet our 2023 Vestry Nominees

Vestry nominees to be voted on at the Annual Parish Meeting, January 22.

Rick Ankrom has been a member of the Cathedral since 2003 and for many years has been an active member of the Altar Guild and the Usher Corp. Rick has also taught Youth Sunday school and served on the Mission Outreach Council. He and his husband Jay Hooker were married at the Cathedral in 2016. Away from the Cathedral, Rick enjoys golf, Astros baseball, traveling and generally being outdoors.

Jim Cowan is Shell’s US Head of Legal and Associate General Counsel Litigation. US & Canada. After expatriate assignments in London and Rio de Janeiro, Jim and his husband William Taylor returned to Houston in 2020. Drawn by the cathedral’s rich tradition of community service, welcoming spirit, and beautiful worship, they found a deep sense of home. Jim serves as a lector, worship leader, and lay Eucharistic minister.

Anne Eisner is a long time member of CCC. She attended Sunday School, was crowned May Fete Queen, was confirmed here, and she and her husband Michael I raised their two sons, Daniel and Ben here. She has served on the Children’s Council, worked with the Youth Group, was on Mission and Outreach Council and the Board of Compass, now a part of The Beacon. Being a lector, Game Night, the Pancake Supper and Episcopal Night at the Ballpark are some of her favorite events. She says she looks forward to being able to serve this church in a deeper way if elected to the Vestry.

Gay Gulledge is a life-long Episcopalian and has been a member of Christ Church Cathedral for over 15 years. She most recently served as Chair of the Stewardship Council in 2021 and 2022. Gay also currently serves on the Board of The Beacon and on the Altar Guild. She is a past Chair of the Mission Outreach Council and was an usher for several years.Gay is a second year student in the Education for Ministry program at the Cathedral. In real life, she is a commercial real estate finance paralegal with Jackson Walker. Gay loves to travel, and was a member of the Cathedral Pilgrimage to Ireland in June 2022. As an avid reader, she has a line item in her personal budget for the Cathedral Bookstore.

Nicolas Shumway was baptized and confirmed in 2001 in the Episcopal Anglican Church of Brazil, where he was a visiting professor at the University of São Paulo. After moving to Houston in 2010 to become Dean of Humanities at Rice University, he visited several Episcopal parishes in the Houston area. Drawn by the beauty of the liturgy, the quality of the preaching, and the excellence of the music program, he quickly found a spiritual home at the Cathedral. For seven years he sang in the Cathedral Choir. More recently, he has been serving as Lay Worship Leader for Evening Prayer and Lay Eucharistic Minister for both the 11 a.m. and the Well services. In his professional life he taught Latin American Studies at several universities including fourteen years at Yale, sixteen years at The University of Texas in Austin, and ten years at Rice. Fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, he has published widely on Latin American topics, including two books on Argentina. Retired since 2020, he looks forward to greater involvement in the Cathedral’s mission, and is both honored and humbled by this nomination for the Vestry.