STORY BY KAREN BOSSICK
PHOTO BY RAE DEVITO
The Rev. Robert Gieselmann will settle in as the new interim priest at St. Thomas Episcopal Church on Sunday, Aug. 25.
Gieselmann will celebrate and preach at both services at 8 and 9:30 a.m. on Sunday, Aug. 25. He also will get acquainted with parishioners at the Parish Picnic today--Aug. 24.
Gieselmann has served at Episcopal churches in Knoxville, Tenn.; Belvedere, Calif.; Sausalito, Calif.; Chestertown, Md., and Cleveland, Tenn.
Before that he practiced general business and corporate law with major Tennessee law firms for 10 years and trained as a civil mediator.
Gieselmann has degrees from Auburn University in Business Administration and Economics. He received his law degree with honors from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville in 1987 and his Master of Divinity degree from the University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn.
His greatest passion is his kids, now young adults, whom he raised as a single parent after the untimely death of his wife.
When not working on behalf of the church, Gieselmann enjoys gardening, exercising and reading fiction. He has written two books himself: “The Episcopal Call to Love” and “A Walk Through the Churchyard.”
Gieselmann will join the Rev. Kathleen Bean in leading St. Thomas while the church searches for a new rector to replace the Rev. Ken Brannon, who left this summer for the Lone Star State where he serves a large church in Dallas.