With a grateful heart, and an eye for adventure, Jocelyn Tupper will be stepping down for good as pastor at Iola’s Wesley United Methodist Church in May.
Tupper, 72, officially retired in December, but is staying at Wesley through May as the Great Plains United Methodist Conference appoints her replacement.
“They’re going through the process of all their appointments across Kansas and Nebraska,” Tupper explained. “That’s the United Methodist’s way.”
That’s what brought Tupper, 72, to Iola in the summer of 2015, after having lived the previous 30 years in northeast Nebraska.
She admitted a hint of trepidation upon coming to Iola.
“My goodness, I’d never lived in Kansas before,” she recalled. “I’d never thought of living in Kansas.”
Her only exposure to Iola before moving here was that she’d drive by on U.S. 169 en route from Nebraska to Stillwater, Okla., to watch her beloved Oklahoma State Cowboys football team.
“I knew Iola had a Super 8,” she laughed.
“But these have been eight of the finest years,” Tupper continued. “They’ve not always been the easiest, but they’ve been exceptional years. I’ve met many, many fine people, good people. Iola’s a good town. I know we struggle as we hope to keep ourselves moving forward. I definitely benefited from living here.”
Tupper’s plans for retirement are few, aside from getting to travel.
Her new camper will be delivered to her by the end of the month, and she already has an agenda mapped out in the coming months.
She plans to venture from Alaska to the Panama Canal, and eventually trek up the eastern seaboard.
“I’m not sure I’ll have an absolutely permanent place to stay,” Tupper said.
That’s just the way she wants it.
“I don’t know that you’re confined as a pastor,” she said. “You get to do things you want to. I like to travel. Now I’ll have the freedom and the time to be able to do that.”
With family clustered in Oklahoma City and Austin, Texas, areas, Tupper is certain she’ll spend plenty of time in both areas.
