Creative Sageing Award for 2013 — Farley and Virginia Wheelwright

Annually, UURMaPA bestows its Creative Sage-ing Award “in recognition of outstanding service and creativity in pursuing new ventures after retirement and building on one’s experience in creative ways.” This year’s prize committee (Jay Atkinson, Nancy Doughty, and John Weston) was pleased to receive eight nominations and found itself hard-pressed to narrow the choice. After much discussion and sober reflection, however, the committee is pleased and proud to present the 2013 Creative Sage-ing award to the Rev. Farley Wheelwright and, posthumously, to Virginia Wheelwright, his spouse, who died in 2011.

For many years after retirement, Virginia and Farley continued as familiar presences at General Assembly, where Farley’s prophetic voice for social justice remained stentorian and passionate. After moving to Mexico Virginia and Farley, and now Farley alone, have been active participants in the UU congregation in San Miguel de Allende in Guanajuato. There Farley lost no time in joining a Mexican protest against sales tax on prescription medicines. Sobered by a warning from locals that the Mexican government didn’t take kindly to “foreigners mingling in their political problems,” Farley turned his attention to a “gringo” issue by joining “a cabal to oust a somnolent Board of Trustees for the Biblioteca – the largest English library in Mexico,” thus saving “the most important gringo society in the State of Guanajuato” and serving for another two years as president of the library’s board. Following that stint, Farley threw himself into the project committee of the local Rotary Club, working especially for improvements in water service to the impoverished residents of the campos outside the town. And he continued to preach for San Miguel UUs until succumbing to failing eyesight.

Meanwhile, Virginia and other members of the San Miguel UU Fellowship founded ¡Jóvenes Adelante! (Youth Go Forward! — www.jovenesadelante.org), providing university scholarships to exceptionally promising, economically disadvantaged students from the cities of San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, and environs. Many are from struggling families in el campo where, even for the most promising young people, the pursuit of a university degree and a professional career is rarely even a dream, let alone a realistic option. To date the program has served some 100 young people, all of whom have moved into good jobs, preventing their need to cross the border illegally to find work. Farley was active in the all-important fundraising arm of this effort.

Now at 96, the second oldest living Unitarian Universalist minister, Farley and, until two years ago, his wife Virginia, have rendered exemplary service during more than two decades of retirement. For all the activities just cited and others not mentioned, the Unitarian Universalist Retired Ministers and Partners Association honors Farley and Virginia Wheelwright with its Creative Sage-ing Award for the year 2013, together with the accompanying cash award of $500.

Farley’s response: “Please extend my thanks, and those posthumously of Virginia, for the UURMaPA Creative ‘Sage-ing’ Award you have so generously bestowed. She would be as proud as I to have been remembered by colleagues. Long life to you both and our organization.”