The Rev. Dr. Dorothy Sanders Wells, Bishop of the Diocese of Mississippi, has been announced by the Southwest Alumni Association as the keynote speaker at the 2024 Blandy Lecture. The 56th Blandy Lecture will happen on Wednesday, November 20, 2024, and includes a day long series of events, as well as an Alumni reunion hosted by the Alumni Association the evening before. Partnering with the Southwest Alumni Association, the Iona Collaborative at Seminary of the Southwest is a co-presenter for this event.
For more information and schedule, or to RSVP, click here
A native of Mobile, Alabama, Wells moved to Memphis to begin her undergraduate studies in vocal performance at Rhodes College. She also has a law degree from the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law at the University of Memphis.
Wells practiced law for 18 years before she was ordained as a priest. She worked as staff director of employee benefits law at FedEx Corporation for 15 years and previously practiced at Waring Cox, PLLC. She earned a Master of Divinity degree at Memphis Theological Seminary and a Doctor of Ministry degree from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. She served the Church of the Holy Apostles in Collierville, Tennessee, as a curate before being called as rector to St. George’s.
Wells and her husband, Herbert, have two daughters.
Wells will succeed Bishop Brian Seage, Mississippi’s 10th bishop who has served since 2014. The diocese includes 87 congregations and about 17,600 members in all the state’s 82 counties. She was ordained and consecrated as bishop on July 20, 2024.*
Now in its 56th year, the Blandy Lecture was created to honor the Very Rev. Gray M. Blandy for his ministry and work as the first dean of the Seminary of the Southwest.
*Biography from Episcopal News Service.
