Sunday, May 10, 2009
David A. Balcom, 74, an Ashburn resident and longtime United Methodist pastor in Northern Virginia who also held many
administrative positions with the church, died April 19 at Washington Hospital Center. He had congestive heart failure.
Rev. Balcom was a pastor at a series of Northern Virginia churches before retiring in 1997 from Trinity United Methodist
Church in McLean.
He was a former executive secretary of a United Methodist board that helped start churches in the Alexandria and
Arlington County area. From 1984 to 1990, he was superintendent of a church district covering the northern part of
Richmond to Quantico. He was an emeritus member of the board of governors for Wesley Theological Seminary in
Washington and was a trustee of the Virginia Conference Historical Society.
David Alexander Balcom was born in Ames, Iowa, and raised in Washington. He was a 1952 graduate of Woodrow
Wilson High School in the District and a 1956 music graduate of what is now McDaniel College in Westminster, Md. In
1959, he received a master's of divinity degree from Wesley.
Among his honors was a distinguished alumnus award from Wesley and an award for outstanding service from United
Methodist church conferences in the mid-Atlantic.
He also was grand chaplain of a Masonic lodge in Washington and received a Masonic distinguished service medal.
Survivors include his wife of 52 years, E. Jean Wehrly Balcom of Ashburn; three daughters, Daean Menke of
Middletown, Md., Jean-Marlene Dixon of Richmond and Kathreen Puryear of South Boston, Va.; a brother, Roger C.
Balcom of Sterling; and seven grandchildren.
-- Alexander F. Remington