Youngil Cho endorsed for moderator of PCUSA
By Jerry L. Van Marter, Presbyterian News Service, October 25, 1999
LOUISVILLE, Ky.–Youngil Cho, a Korean-American elder from Raleigh, N.C., who led the General Assembly Council through some tempestuous times, has been unanimously endorsed by New Hope Presbytery as a candidate for moderator of the 212th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Cho joins the Rev. John L. Herndon III of Huntsville, Ala., as a candidate for the denomination’s top elected office. The moderator will be elected June 24, 2000, at the General Assembly in Long Beach, Calif.
Cho, who is a professor of business and marketing at the University of North Carolina, was elected chair of the General Assembly Council in 1996 — just before that year’s General Assembly refused to confirm the Rev. James D. Brown for a second four-year term as the council’s executive director. Later that year, Brown’s top deputy, G.A. “Pat” Goff, was forced out as director of the council’s Corporate and Administrative Services in the midst of a budget dispute.
As chair, Cho moved quickly, engineering the promotion of the Rev. Frank Diaz from associate director for administration to interim executive director and tapping veteran banking executive Robert McKee, who has since died, to file an administrative services slot on a temporary basis.
Cho has also been active in Presbyterian Men, including a stint as chair of the organization’s council, and chaired a committee that successfully raised $700,000 in 18 months to complete construction of the chapel in the Presbyterian Center in Louisville.
He has also chaired the National Asian Presbyterian Council, the National Cross Caucus and the National Korean Presbyterian Council.
Cho is a charter member and elder of Duraleigh Presbyterian Church in Raleigh and has been the church’s clerk of session since 1980.