Roanridge Training Conference Center

Wilbur Cochel, a deputy from West Missouri to the 1940 General Convention, believed that a good rural priest needed to know about farming. In 1942 he and his wife offered their 320-acre demonstration farm, twenty miles north of Kansas City, to the Episcopal Church. It was called Roanridge Farm because of the mixed red and white cattle known as Shorthorns. Later the Roanridge Rural Training Foundation was established. Roanridge was for years the location of the Town and Country Institute. In 1969 the site was named the Roanridge Conference Center. The Rev. Dr. H. Boone Porter became the director in 1970. Later Roanridge was the Leadership Academy for New Directions (LAND). Roanridge closed on Feb. 28, 1977. The property was sold and the endowment used to support the continuation of LAND, also known as New Directions Ministries, as well as St. Luke's Hospital and Grace Cathedral, both in Kansas City. Roanridge's major contribution was the training of people for town and country ministries.