BANGOR — Ansley Coe Throckmorton, a former minister of the Hammond Street Congregational Church, has been nominated to become the first female president of the 181-year-old Bangor Theological Seminary.

If Throckmorton’s nomination is approved by the school’s board of trustees, she will succeed Malcolm Warford as the seminary’s eighth president. Warford announced last fall that he would resign effective July 1.

The board is expected to vote on the nomination next week before the May 19 graduation ceremony.

“It’s not definite yet,” said Janet Beaulieu, a BTS spokeswoman. “It’s not a fait accompli.”

She said Throckmorton will visit the campus next week before the board makes its final decision.

“She is the personification of Bangor Theological Seminary,” said Jon Dawson, chairman of the board of trustees.

He said he is especially excited to see a woman who is “past normal retirement age” with two new hips and two new knees take on such a challenge.

Throckmorton, 67, was nominated “unanimously and enthusiastically” by the eight-member search committee, said Thomas Longstaff, chairman of that committee. Longstaff, a member of the BTS board of trustees and chairman of the religious studies department at Colby College, said Throckmorton was chosen from a list of three finalists. She was chosen because of her “distinguished career, very impressive credentials and strong vision of where theological education is going,” he said.

Throckmorton, who could not be reached for comment, was associate minister of the Hammond Street Congregational Church from 1972 until 1978 when she became the church’s senior minister. During that time she also served as a supervisor in the pastoral education department of BTS.

Throckmorton left Hammond Street in 1986 to become the general secretary of the Division of Education and Publication at the United Church Board for Homeland Ministries in Cleveland. The Homeland Ministries is the domestic arm of the United Church of Christ and conducts programs in health and welfare, higher education, evangelism and church development and publication. The United Church Board prepares and distributes Christian educational materials for preschoolers through adults through its Pilgrim Press.

Throckmorton, who has also served on the seminary’s board of trustees, received a bachelor’s degree in arts from Wellesley College in 1948 and a master of divinity degree from BTC in 1964.

Throckmorton has also served as a vice president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and president of the Maine Conference, United Church of Christ.

Her husband, Burton, was a professor of New Testament at BTS. The couple has two sons, Timothy, a sportscaster at WABI-TV in Bangor, and Hamilton, who received a master of divinity degree at the seminary.

Next week the school will also announce that Longstaff will succeed Jon Dawson as chairman of the board of trustees.