New priest takes pulpit at St. Mary's Episcopal Church

St. Mary’s Church has a priest again years after its last non-interim minister moved to another parish.

Joel Ireland, 59, arrived Saturday in his pick-up truck, his aging golden retriever Isaiah on his lap, after a five-night drive from Tucson, Arizona, where he grew up, raised two sons, practiced law and served on the school board for 20 years even as he also served the Episcopal Church part-time, most recently as vicar of Tombstone.

After a lifetime in a desert landscape, “I think I’ve landed in paradise,” the hiking and canoeing enthusiast said in an interview at the church on Monday as he was still getting settled. “I got pretty tired of the desert and its heat.”

He added that he was looking forward to ordering his first sweater ever from a catalogue later that afternoon.