Mountain View Conference

Story by Valerie Morikone

In 2017, the Mountain View Conference Executive Committee met to strategically plan for the future. With the assistance of Celeste Ryan-Blyden, vice president of Strategic Communication and Public Relations for the Columbia Union Conference, we prayerfully asked, “Who is the Mountain View Conference, and what should our focus be?” Committee members suggested several ideas, including church planting.

To grow a garden, you must first prepare the soil, then put the seed in the ground. If conditions remain favorable, the plant begins to sprout. If the new plant continues to get nourished, it will grow and prosper into full maturity.

Given the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s history and distinctive focus on the second coming of Jesus Christ, it’s not surprising that, during tough economic times, after natural disasters or amid seasons of great uncertainty, many members speculate how “near” the end is. The Visitor team talked with four pastors and captured excerpts of their perspectives.

Story by Valerie Morikone

On Wednesday, December 16, 2020, Mountain View Conference (MVC) constituents and friends were saddened to receive the news that Larry Boggess passed to his rest. Boggess retired as MVC president in 2017. He and his wife, Jo’an, then moved to their country home in Ohio to live near family.

Boggess arrived to MVC in 1989 to pastor the Beckley (W.Va.) church, and pastored several churches for more than a decade. In 2002, Boggess was elected to the office of executive secretary, and, in 2006, became MVC president, a position he held for almost 12 years, also adding the title of superintendent of education for several years.

Story by Valerie Morikone

Ginelle Edmondson recently became the new Health Ministries director of the Mountain View Conference.

Born in Guyana, South America, and raised in Queens, N.Y., she always expressed an interest in health. Feeling led to study nursing for her undergraduate career, Edmondson was drawn to public health and mission work. She graduated with a Master in Public Health from New York University (NYU), then traveled to study abroad in Cape Town, South Africa.

Story by Valerie Morikone

Graduating from Pacific Union College (Calif.) in 1974, Daniel Morikone worked as a registered nurse in California, Kentucky and Michigan prior to becoming a literature evangelist (LE) for the Michigan Conference.

During that time, he received a call to be the assistant manager of an Adventist Home Health in Kentucky in 1982. This brought about the purchase of six acres across the Kentucky border in the state of West Virginia, where he and his wife, Valerie, built a house and raised their son, Greg, and daughter, Janelle. 

Members of the Williamson (W.Va.) church, it wasn’t until 1997 that Morikone returned to the LE work with the Kentucky-Tennessee Conference, having a territory of 17 counties. On September 1, 2000, he was asked to pastor the Williamson and Logan churches.