A Bio for our speaker this Sunday Dennis Aleson

Ruth and I will be gone this Sunday traveling to VA to see Tim, Christa, Neva, Esther and Oliver. My good friend from the Songspinners Dennis Aleson will be speaking in my absence and I appreciate his willingness to come and speak. Here is a bio of Dennis' ministry.

Rev. Dennis Aleson is a retired clergy member of the Dakotas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church and also a retired chaplain with the U. S. Air Force (1977-2003).  He was born in 1947 into a parsonage family of the Evangelical United Brethren Church in North Dakota, where his father served as a pastor for 50 years.  Pastor Aleson’s twin brother Darrel, of Bismarck, ND, is also a retired United Methodist clergy, just retired from 26 years as a fulltime hospital chaplain, preceded by church pastorates in ND and MT.

Dennis Aleson graduated from Kindred,  ND High School in 1965, followed by a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from Westmar College in LeMars, IA in 1969.  After two years of military service courtesy of his draft board (1969-71) and with duty in Turkey and Spain, he felt his call to ministry and in 1975 received his Master of Divinity from the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, with an additional year of post-graduate studies at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, CA in 1984.   After two years as a civilian pastor in Hettinger, ND,  Rev. Aleson began a 26+-year career as an USAF Chaplain, with 10 duty locations during that time,  His stateside assignments included two in Colorado Springs: the USAF Academy (1986-90) and his final assignment at Peterson AFB / Cheyenne Mountain AF Station (1999-2003).  Other unique assignments included Izmir, Turkey, ancient Smyrna of biblical times (1981-83), and the Greek island of Crete (1990-92).  Following the Air Force Chaplain Service, Pastor Aleson has done a variety of short-term interim pastor locations in CO and ND, as well as supply preaching and other occasional services of the church (weddings, funerals, etc.)
 A defining moment in his life and ministry occurred in 1996 when he was the senior deployed chaplain at Khobar Towers, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, a military housing complex attacked by Islamic terrorists on 25 June 1996.  Nineteen persons were killed, along with 300-400 injuries.
For his leadership of chaplain services in the aftermath of this tragedy, he was named the
1996 USAF Outstanding Chaplain of the Year, and in 2000 was named the Outstanding Alumni of the Year in Specialized Ministries from his Denver seminary.
Dennis Aleson has been married since 1971 to Carol (Arnold) Aleson, a Nebraskan.  They have two adult offspring: 1) son Ryan, living with wife Emily and grandchildren Calvin (2010) and Lucy (2012) in Orlando, FL, and soon to add grandchild #3 in early 2016.----2) daughter Heather Bingham and her husband Dustin living in Colorado Springs……Besides volunteer work and occasional ministries, Pastor Aleson is a longtime member of the Colorado Springs Show Choir, the Songspinners.  Travel is also now high on the priority list for Pastor and Mrs. Aleson.