Talk about your busy weekends.
The Rev. Dyton Owen arrived in Iola on a Thursday evening, started unpacking on Friday and Saturday, and by Sunday morning was greeting members at Iola’s Wesley United Methodist Church, where he now serves as pastor.
“It was busy, but it went smoothly,” Owen said with a smile. “We already had the program ready to go. We just jumped right in.”
Owen, who has served as a pastor for nearly 40 years, comes to Iola eager to connect with the community.
“I’ll be trying to meet with community leaders over the next couple of weeks to see how we might be able to work together,” he said. “I’m very hands-on with my ministry, and look forward to getting involved in the community after we get settled.”
Moving to Iola was a particularly exciting development because his wife, Tammy, spent much of her childhood in Eureka.
Owen, meanwhile, is an Oklahoma native, and son of a pastor and bishop, whose service has taken him from Texas to Nebraska and various parts in between.
Wesley is his 14th church since Owen began preaching in the early 1980s as a college student.
He’s served in churches of all sizes, from ultra-rural to suburban, urban and even inner-city churches in Oklahoma City.
“We wanted a small town,” Owen said. “We like the peace and quiet, and not the big-city rush and headache that it involves.”
Iola’s size is perfect, he notes, because it’s large enough to get pretty much anything he needs locally, but small enough that it doesn’t take 30 minutes to drive one-way to work, like he did at his most recent stop in Oklahoma City.
They’ve previously served at churches in Chanute and Independence years ago, but Iola is the couple’s closest stop to Eureka yet.
“The goal is always to stay as long as you can,” ‘he said. “My goal is to stay here for a while.”
OWEN grew up in a family already well-acquainted with the church. In addition to his father, Owen had a brother who became a pastor.
It was while in college at Oklahoma City University that Owen felt his calling from God, so he switched over to OKC’s school of theology, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in theology.
It was also where, at age 20, he was tapped to preach at a small church outside Edmond, an Oklahoma City sububrb.
“I’d preach on weekends and go to school during the week,” he recalled. “I did that all the way through seminary.”
