Richmond calls seven years as a priest ?Joy filled and very fulfilling?

    In the week he has been in Washington, Father Troy Richmond, who recently took over the St. James Parish, said he is excited about coming to the area.

    Richmond said he has been ordained for seven years, and in that time he has served in several parishes. His first assignment was in his hometown of Ottumwa. During his time there, he said he worked a lot with the Hispanic population. After one year, he was assigned to Columbus Junction, Muscatine and Wilton parishes. Again he served both the Anglo and Hispanic communities. After two years, he was assigned to Fort Madison. He said there were two parishes in Fort Madison and preliminary work had been done to merge the two. He said the people of the parishes were supportive and worked to build one community. He said it was difficult a few Sundays ago to say his goodbyes to the people.

    He said that he and Father Paul Appel, whom he replaced, were three years apart in Ottumwa High School. He attended Iowa State University in Ames to study music and went to St. Ambrose in Davenport to study philosophy. He and Appel attended seminary at Mundelein Seminary in Chicago, Ill. 

What brings you to Washington?

    The bishop assigned me to come here as pastor. The personnel board meets and their recommendations are given to the bishop. We are assigned a parish based on our gifts and based on our strengths in ministry. I believe the gifts I bring to Washington ? I have a great passion for standing ministry. There is an active standing community here in Washington. If you go to the Spanish ministry at noon Sunday, you will see a full church. I?m a huge supporter of Catholic schools and look forward to strengthening the school. During my time in Fort Madison, I grew to love small town Iowa and I look forward to working here. I find in smaller towns and smaller parishes people come together, help out and support one another.

How did you get started working with the Hispanic community? 

    To begin with in high school I studied four years of Spanish and had an opportunity to go over to Costa Rica. I spent three weeks of my senior year of high school there. I really fell in love with the culture. I got to St. Ambrose and the vocation director asked if I would be interested in revisiting the Spanish language. I said it would help in my ministry and give me some more skills to reach out. I took three semesters at St. Ambrose. When I got to seminary, the first summer, I spent six weeks in Guadalajara at a language school.

For more, see our July 9 print edition.