RCC leader named communication officer for United Methodist mission agency

A former RCC board member was named chief communication officer for the United Methodist mission agency in New York July 22.

Larry R. Hygh Jr., a member of RCC's Los Angeles Chapter, is to take over Sept. 13 as director of mission communications for the General Board of Global Ministries. He succeeds the Rev. Christopher Heckert, a member of RCC's New York City Chapter. In June Heckert accepted appointment as a pastor in the United Methodist Greater New Jersey Conference.

Hygh served on the RCC Board of Governors from 2005 to 2008 and worked with scholarship students who attended annual RCC National Conventions. Since 2002, he has been communications director for the United Methodist California-Pacific Conference.

In his new position Hygh will be a member of the mission board's seven-member administrative cabinet. He will be one of two co-equal executives heading the Development and Communications Unit.

Before going to California, Hygh, a native Texan, worked for a year as communications director for the United Methodist Mississippi Conference and two years as associate communications director for the United Methodist Baltimore-Washington Conference.

In 1998, Hygh was first recipient of the Judith L. Weidman Racial Ethnic Minority Fellowship in Communication, awarded by United Methodist Communications. He served for a year as a communications intern in the United Methodist New England Conference.