Melissa Wiginton is a member of Trinity UMC. She is the Vice President for Education Beyond the Walls at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Austin, a new dimension of the seminary’s work which she began in January of this year. She holds an M. Div. from Candler School of Theology at Emory University, a J. D. from the University of Texas School of Law, and a B. A. from the University of Texas at Austin.

Austin is home for Melissa: she attended college and law school here and practiced law for a dozen years before changing her direction to earn the M. Div. degree. While practicing law, she served as president of the Austin Family Mediation Association and, with Mary Fogel, created Moving Through: A Workshop for Divorcing Families, the first educational program in Austin to help parents in conflictual divorces ease the children’s difficulty. In 1996, the Texas Senate recognized Ms. Wiginton for her work on behalf of Texas families.

Melissa is the mother of Betsy. Betsy and Sid’s daughter Rachel were classmates at Lee Elementary School. Melissa is married to Rev. David White, Ph. D., an ordained elder in the Mississippi Annual Conference of UMC, a professor at Austin Seminary, and an affiliate member of Trinity.