50 Years, 50 Profiles
As we are in our 50th year as a parish, Kat Turner has agreed to interview and write profiles of 50 of our
parishioners. This issue contains the first four profiles.
Profile #1 – Katie Chykirda
November will mark Katie Chykirda’s three-year anniversary at
Church of the Resurrection. Unlike many of us who joined
Resurrection at the invitation of a friend or because we passed it
while driving on Beauregard Street, Katie found us by answering
an ad! Katie and her husband Daniel, a civilian employee of the
Air Force, were relocating to the DC area from Connecticut,
when Katie saw our posting for a nursery attendant for
Sunday mornings. She applied and was hired. From there, last
year, she became the coordinator for our Sunday school, where
the innovative one room schoolhouse program has proven to be
a big success with our children.
Katie majored in Medieval History at Central Connecticut State University and deepened her knowledge of this
historical period with a master’s degree in theology and Catholic Church history at Holy Apostles College and
Seminary. But, she decided working with children was her first love, and is now working toward her teaching
credentials at Marymount University. She is a teaching intern this fall at Dogwood Elementary in Reston and
will work at another school in the spring.
When she has spare time, she likes to read, hike, and visit the many farmers’
markets in northern Virginia. After three years in this area, Katie says, “Resurrection is what made it home
here,” and says the church has become her family. Maybe we ought to run more ads!
Profile #2 – Elizabeth White
Elizabeth White and her husband Carter, lifelong Episcopalians both, found
Resurrection in 1980 when they moved to Alexandria’s Lowell Avenue, just a
block from Jim Green. At the time they had daughters Mary and Anne, later
joined by Betsy, who is now a PhD candidate at Harvard.
Elizabeth usually attends the 8:00 am service, and contributes to
Resurrection’s well-being as a teller, a plant tender, a visitor to Goodwin
House, and as the manager of the winter coat drive. She is also responsible
for the occasional appearance of fresh fruit in the narthex, bounty from her
daughter Mary’s farm, whose stall at the Thursday Mason District Park
farmers market she frequently tends.
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