Lorna Kropp brings ecumenical commitment as webmaster

Lorna Kropp is the Webmaster.

Webmaster Lorna Kropp brings to The Fig Tree her sense of adventure as an “early adopter” of technology and her ecumenical commitment.

As a founder, volunteer and part-time librarian and technology teacher at Discovery School from 1983 until retiring in 2008, she consulted with and helped train Fig Tree editor Mary Stamp, who began The Fig Tree website about 2004.

Lorna started designing websites in 1999 with HTML code.  As a volunteer, she helped Discovery School, Westminster Congregational United Church of Christ (UCC) and the Pacific Northwest UCC Conference develop websites.

In fall 2008, Lorna started working one day a week with The Fig Tree, because “I believe in the ecumenical cause and I wanted to keep growing and learning about technology as web designer.”

The Fig Tree was using Dreamweaver as the website design tool.  She and Mary learned and continue to learn about design.  Lorna does research, tests and proposes tools, teaching Mary who helps with updates and corrections.

“The Fig Tree website has endless numbers of stories of people acting out of their faith, people in all walks of life,” Lorna said.

She is learning the next generation of coding and technology to redesign the website, so the stories and directory are more accessible through keyword searches.

Lorna grew up in a Congregational Church in Fort Dodge, Iowa.  While studying psychology at Iowa State University, she was active in the ecumenical campus ministry, the Iowa/Nebraska United Campus Christian Fellowship and the National Student Christian Fellowship Board.

Summer work camps with the American Friends Service Committee in Nashville, New Orleans and Ames introduced her to race relations, civil rights, poverty and efforts to improve conditions.

After graduating in 1964, Lorna did two years of volunteer service at a German Evangelical Church young adult program in Stuttgart.

With the American Friends Service Committee in Paris, she did work camps—in Italy, England and at the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey in Switzerland.

Lorna returned to study at Yale Divinity School, earning a master of arts in religion in 1968.

In 1970, she married Paul, who also studied at Yale.  She worked at a mental health center in Hamden, Conn., with families of developmentally delayed children and adults.  In 1981, the Kropps moved to Spokane.

Lorna was church school coordinator at Westminster UCC and helped start Discovery School in 1983.  When the church hired an associate pastor, she began studies for a library certificate at Eastern Washington University, taking computer science classes.

Lorna also seeks to interest children in science, technology and robotics through First Lego League, coaching a team and helping organize regional events.

She serves on the Friends of Turnbull Wildlife Refuge board and on the Westminster UCC education board, and has served as a resource person on church school curricula with Pacific Northwest and national UCC.

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