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Leader Bio: David Foster

Photo of David Foster (Gannd) I grew up in a small town in northwest Ohio and was raised in the Methodist faith until I joined the military. I started appearing in the Tucson pagan community in 1980 after completing my six years of enlisted military service. This is also about the same time I found the Society for Creative Anachronism. The SCA is a medieval re-creation organization. They needed me to select a persona for awards and participation. I was interested in being a Druid as it fit my needs at the time while being involved with both the Society of American Magicians and the International Brotherhood of Magicians.

This also started my religious path and research into the various Druidic groups around. I quickly became active in both of the SCA and pagan communities as a solitary Druid and continually studying and crafting. Over the years in the SCA I have attained their highest Arts award, the Laurel, a peerage. I have also been active in another medieval re-creation group called the Empire of Chivalry and Steel in which I am member #10 and have also attained their highest Arts award, the Order of the White Feather. It is a much smaller group compared to the SCA and I am not as active as I once was in the organization.

I met Isaac Bonewits in the pagan community in 1984/1985 time frame and became familiar with his work. In 1986 I became a member of the Ár nDraíocht Féin, A Druid Fellowship, Inc., the religious organization that he founded. I am member #19 in the ADF. In the middle nineties I let my ADF membership lapse due to having no local activity with Druidry other than myself and a very few close friends. I also was continually providing multi-denominational wedding and funeral services for the SCA, pagan and Renaissance Faire community under the auspices of using the basic ADF ritual setup and a formal ordainment of the Universal Life Church.

I reinstated my membership with ADF when a number of my friends and I formed the Sonoran Sunrise Grove of ADF in Tucson in late 1999. I became the elected founding Senior Druid of the Grove. I have been continually re-elected for the Senior Druid position every year since our founding. My personal goal is to make the Grove a viable, very active, public long-term group in the Tucson pagan community – and nationally. I am also currently serving as the ADF Administrator, an appointed position that oversees and monitors business practices within the group.

Another pagan organization that I was heavily involved with in the 1988 to 1994 time frame was the Pagan Arizona Network (PAN) when I moved from Tucson to Phoenix for those years. This has allowed me to become well known in the Phoenix valley pagan organizations. Since I moved back to Tucson in 1994 I got involved with other Tucson pagan organizations. I became a Corresponding Priest for the Mother Earth Ministries as of February of 2002. It is a religious prison outreach organization based in Arizona. I am currently performing this function in ADF until someone else is appointed. I also became quite active in the Tucson Area Wiccan and Pagan organization (TAWN) in Tucson, Arizona. I have served several annual terms on their TAWN Board of Directors.

In my non-religious life I am a Senior Multi-Disciplined Development Engineer working at Raytheon Missile Systems in Tucson, Arizona. I work with the latest technologies and designs on a variety of programs there. I have worked for them from 1980 to 1988 and again from 1994 to the present. I hold Associate Degrees in Electrical Engineering, Chemistry, and Physics as well as previous military training. My hobbies, when I have time for them, are brewing meads, leathercraft, silverwork and costuming. I also work at and attend some of the science fiction conventions in Arizona. They usually pull me into panels on topics in both religion and technology.

For the medieval re-creation community, my SCA name is Master Davan inn Spaki called Gannd, OL (minus the additional lower level alphabet soup awards). My ECS name is basically the same with a bit of different alphabet soup. I have used my Gannd nickname for twenty five years in many organizations. I find it useful in specifically identifying myself rather that using my first name only. Even at work there are three other "Daves" that are always within twenty feet of me.

In quick summary I will always be a Druid with the attitude of the Church is where you walk and the only two things that we leave behind when we pass the Veil is those that we teach with our mind and that which we craft with our hands.

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