Friday night, the South Central Jurisdictional Conference approved the appointment of Bishop Robert Schnase as the bishop of the San Antonio Episcopal Area serving the Rio Texas Annual Conference. Schnase is no stranger to Rio Texas having been elected to the episcopacy from the former Southwest Texas Annual Conference. More recently he has served on the Episcopal Leadership Team as Rio Texas awaited the appointment of a new bishop. He was the presiding bishop at this year's gathering of the Rio Texas Annual Conference.

Before his election as bishop, Schnase served for 15 years as senior pastor of First United Methodist Church in McAllen. He also served congregations in Harlingen and in Great Britain. Schnase is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and Perkins School of Theology. He enjoys birding, fishing, canoeing, and traveling in Central America. Schnase‘s wife, Esther, currently works as a librarian with the University of Missouri, and they have two sons, Karl and Paul.