Rev. Barrington Ross
Board Chair
The Reverend Barrington Bernard Ross serves as current Board Chair of PEACH. He is a native
of Winnsboro, S.C. His ministry began in 1990 at Tanner Chapel African Methodist Episcopal
Church (AMEC) in Phoenix, Arizona under the late Reverend Russell Hill, Jr. and the current
pastor, the Reverend Benjamin Thomas, Jr. In 1993, his family and he moved to Durham, North
Carolina, where he attended seminary at Duke Divinity School. He served under the Reverend
Philip R. Cousin, Jr., Senior Pastor at St. Joseph’s A.M.E. Durham until he received Itinerant
orders in 1997. He's pastored four churches in the Western North Carolina Conference-WNCC
(St. Joseph Aberdeen, Joseph Temple Laurinburg, Piney Grove Raleigh, and Pearson Chapel
Yanceyville). In WNCC, he served as Chairman of the Committee on Necrology and Memoirs
for 20 years and the Western District Communications Team.
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He received a Bachelor’s of Science in Teaching Biology from North Carolina Agricultural and
State University in 1982. He worked as a process chemist and trainer for Motorola, Incorporated
for 14 years. He began teaching middle schoolers in 1999 at Shepard Magnet International
Baccalaureate School. Science students were exposed to various dissections, activities, field
trips, science fairs, and events during his career at Shepard. He helped to create and field test
lessons with the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) middle school lesson supplements on
“Chemical, the Environment, and You” developed by the Biological Curriculum Study Center
(BSCS) in Colorado Springs, Colorado. During the summer of 2000, he coordinated and directed Enviro-camp for elementary and middle school students at North Carolina Central University.
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He worked in leadership with many science programs, including the Math and Science Educational Network (MSEN), Science Olympiad, Science Decathlon, Students Making another Science Success
Story (SMASSS) and Project SEED (Summer Experiences for the Economically Disadvantaged). In the fall of 2004, he escorted six Project SEED high school students to Montreal Canada, to present their work at the prestigious Sigma Xi’s international convention. Also, in 2004, he began collaboration with NCCU and the University of California Berkeley on a 5-year National Science Foundation Grant, “Technology Enhanced Learning in Science- TELS” where he helped to create and field test web-based inquiry lessons. In 2006, he was featured for his work in Science magazine in the article, “New Curricula Aim to Make High School Labs Less Boring”. (Yudhijit Bhattacharjee, 2006).
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Pastor Ross served as the 3A Central Regional Science Fair Director for 9 years for elementary,
middle and high school students. The yearly event hosted 800 students, parents, vendors and
judges that showcased student-driven science experiments. Students were advanced to state,
national, and international science fairs. Many of his students obtained full scholarships to
college for their participation in science fairs.
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In May 2021, he retired as an educator, and was certified in Secondary Middle School Science,
High School Biology, Earth and Space Science, and Bible in North Carolina. In 2007, Rev. Ross evangelized and preached in Paris and Lyon, France for 10 days and was instrumental in establishing an AME church in Lyon, France. In 2013, he was a Moral Monday Arrestee in Raleigh, N.C. protesting against immoral and unfair voting laws and low-teacher pay.
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Rev. Ross completed his Master of Divinity Degree from Payne Theological Seminary in Wilberforce, Ohio in 2018. At Payne, he served as Vice President, President, Payne Trustee Board Member and Senior Class President. He received the prestigious Student Leadership Award. He's currently pursuing a certification in Chaplaincy from the College of Pastoral Supervision and Psychotherapy (CPSP).
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In April 2021, Rev. Ross was appointed to Robinson A.M.E Grasonville in the Baltimore Annual
Conference, Eastern District. He serves as a member of the Board of Examiners in the Baltimore
Annual Conference and the Chairman of the Deeds and Abstracts Committee. In October 2023, Rev. Ross unsuccessfully ran for Bishop in the A.M.E. Church worldwide. He traveled and preached throughout the AME Connection from Los Angeles, California; Accra, Ghana, Dakar, Senegal; to Johannesburg, South Africa.
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In October 2024, The Caucus of African American Leaders (CAAL) honored Pastor with a lifetime achievement award in Pocomoke City, Md. He was appointed as a board member to Progressive Maryland, a non-profit that advocates for the re-entry of incarcerated individuals through faith-based centers. He’s a brother of Mu Lambda Chapter (Wash., D.C.) of Alpha Phi Alpha, Fraternity, Inc. and has served for 45 years.
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Shawn Myers Ross, his loving wife of 40 years is the AME Non-Governmental Organization/Women’s Missionary Society (NGO/WMS) Commissioner to the United Nations (U.N.), a Licensed AME Missionary and a graduate of Hampton University in Sociology and N.C. Central University, Master of Public Administration. They have two children, Amena and Caleb. Caleb’s six-year-old daughter, Eden Leigh Jones Ross, is God’s blessing to Rev. Ross and Sis. Shawn. They both live in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. Pastor Ross enjoys golfing, cooking, word games, and playing the saxophone.