The Rev. Christopher Roque, vicar of the Episcopal Church of Fort McKavett & Menard, was the featured speaker at the Fort Concho Speaker Series on April 9. He faced a crowded Commissary audience eager to hear his presentation.
Roque is a Master Peace Officer with decades in law enforcement who said he finally answered his calling after making the rank of captain, and enrolling in the seminary in 2002.
Drawing from local author Barbara Barton’s well-regarded history, “Pistol Packin’ Preachers: Circuit Riders of Texas,” Roque visited about three of the first clergymen from the Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterian traditions to wander the Lone Star State with a Protestant message of salvation.
He began speaking about Baptist missionary Z. N. Morrell, who was active in the Washington-on-the-Brazos area in the 1830s, establishing the first Baptist churches in the state, talking briefly about the black-powder sidearms they would have carried, and sketching out the lawless nature of the frontier state in those days.
He spoke a good deal about San Angelo’s own foundational Methodist, the Rev. Andrew Jackson Potter, and shared several stories from that man’s early, middle and later years.
Rev. Roque concluded his talk with the story of Pierre Bernard Hill, the Presbyterian minister and lawman who became the first Texas Ranger chaplain.
Roque has served with distinction in several departments in Texas, including the Tom Green County Sheriff’s Office, where he still serves as a reserve deputy and chaplain.
This Week’s Speaker
Fort Concho’s Speaker Series continues at noon on Wednesday, April 16, as local historian Carl Brockman presents “Ambrose Bierce — Nobody Will Never Find My Bones” in the Fort Concho Commissary.
Admission is free and open to the public, and attendees are welcome to bring along their lunch.
Parking at 702 Burgess St.
For more information, call 325-657-4444 or visit their website at www.fortconcho.com
