(opens in a new tab) Bishop John Harvey Taylor named Geoffrey Claflin Rusack – an active lay member of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles whose father, the Rt. Rev. Robert C. Rusack, was its fourth bishop – an honorary canon of the diocese on June 14. Taylor presented the canon’s cross and certificate during his Sunday visitation to All Saints by-the-Sea, Santa Barbara, where Rusack and his spouse, Alison Wrigley Rusack, are longtime parishioners.
“Canons distinguish themselves by meritorious service to the whole diocesan community,” Taylor said. “Geoff has been a friend and advisor to each of his father’s successors. He is active in the lives of numerous congregations and has been a generous supporter of one diocesan event and campaign after another. He evangelizes by telling and amplifying the story of the ministries of Bishop Rusack and Geoff’s mother, Canon Janice Rusack. Nothing better can be said of a pilgrim than that they incarnate a commandment. In Canon Rusack’s case, it’s honor thy father and thy mother.”
Taylor noted the new canon’s life-long involvement in congregations and schools of the diocese dates from the 1950s when Geoff Rusack’s father was called as rector of St. Augustine by-the-Sea, Santa Monica, and then in 1964 elected the diocese’s bishop suffragan and in 1973 its bishop diocesan until his death in 1986. Rusack, 70, and his sister, Rebecca Rusack Waycott, also followed the example of dedicated diocesan service set by their mother, the late Canon Janice Morrison Overfield Rusack.
Rusack was 2 years old when the family moved from his native Montana to Southern California where he grew up enjoying surfing, skiing, scuba diving, and sailing. He attended the Harvard School for Boys (now Harvard-Westlake) and went on to Bowdoin College in Maine and then to Pepperdine Law School. He practiced law in Los Angeles and, after obtaining his commercial, multi-engine instrument pilot’s rating, specialized in aviation law. In May 1985 Rusack married Alison Elizabeth Hunter Wrigley, whose father, William – president of the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, the world’s largest manufacturer of chewing gum – inherited a controlling interest in Santa Catalina Island.
(opens in a new tab)Through the years, Alison and Geoff Rusack – who in 1991 acquired 48 acres in the Santa Ynez Valley and established Rusack Vineyards – have been held management roles in the Santa Catalina Island Company, of which Geoff Rusack is currently president and CEO. In 2007 the Rusacks planted a five-acre vineyard at El Rancho Escondido, in the center of Catalina Island, and in 2014 took an ownership interest in the 80+-year-old ranch and began an eight-year restoration project of it, also building the Bishop’s Chapel at a high point on the property. With renovation work recently completed, the Rusacks are now welcoming island residents and visitors to the site and highlighting its historic features including the Catalina Island Arabian horse program.
Parents of three sons, the Rusacks celebrated the baptism of their first grandchild with Bishop Taylor officiating at rites held in the Bishop’s Chapel on June 16, the 100th anniversary of Bishop Rusack’s birth.