The longtime evangelist, Bible professor and columnist for the Gospel Advocate and Magnolia Messenger had recently received an honorary doctorate in Christian education from Faulkner, located in Montgomery.

His first wife, Winnie, died on a Sunday nine years earlier, in 2016. They had four children together: Betty Lozada, Cecil May III, Roslyn Miller and Richard May. Cecil May Jr. married Janice a year after Winnie’s death.

May’s family remembers him for his love for them, God, the church and every person he met — and for his passion for preaching the Gospel and training Christians to carry out that mission.

He advocated strongly for Christian unity.

Cecil May Jr., bottom right, with his wife, Janice, and other family members at a luncheon honoring him at Faulkner University in Montgomery, Ala.

“I think lines of division, including even refusal of any association, have been drawn over too many differences,” May told The Christian Chronicle in 2018.

“Most of our problems would be solved if we listened to the ‘meekness and humility’ parts of the admonitions to correct one another,” he added.

A calculated commitment to preaching

Shortly after May’s June 13, 1932, birth in northwest Tennessee, his family moved to Memphis. There, they worshiped with the Union Avenue Church of Christ, and Cecil May Sr. worked as a barber.

May was heavily influenced by preacher and Lipscomb University teacher G.C. Brewer and Union Avenue minister  E.W. McMillan, whose focus on preaching grace and forgiveness May appreciated.

May entered Harding University in Searcy, Ark. — Harding College at the time — in 1950 with a double major in math and Bible.

Math was his fallback — just in case preaching didn’t work out.

But May’s adviser, W.B. West, convinced him to trust in the Lord.

May never forgot West’s appeal: “If you will prepare yourself well, preach the truth and love the people you preach to, the Lord will take care of you — and he’ll use his people to do it.”

“If you will prepare yourself well, preach the truth and love the people you preach to, the Lord will take care of you — and he’ll use his people to do it.”

He dropped the math and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in biblical languages in 1954. The same year, he married Winnie Agnes Williamson and planted a church in Potts Camp, Miss.

May preached at churches in north Mississippi until he graduated with a master’s degree in New Testament biblical studies in 1967, under the tutelage of Harding theology professor Jack Lewis.

After briefly moving to Portland, Ore., to preach and teach at Columbia Christian College, he went on to plant another church in Raymond, Miss., outside Jackson, and hosted the “Five Golden Minutes” radio program in nearby Vicksburg.

Cecil May Jr., front center, celebrates his 85th birthday with his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren at a family member’s home in Edmond, Okla.

In 1977, May became Bible dean for Heritage Christian University — then known as International Bible College — in Florence, Ala.

Three years later, he left to become president of the now-defunct Magnolia Bible College in Kosciusko, Miss., a position he held for nearly two decades.

Newspapers at Cecil May Jr.’s memorial service chronicle moments in his life, including his time at Magnolia Bible College.

During that time, he led the school to begin training Black preachers, produce a number of successful preachers in Churches of Christ — including his son, Cecil May III — and achieve accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

Freed-Hardeman University in Henderson, Tenn., awarded May an honorary law degree for his accomplishments there.

May went on to lead Faulkner University’s V.P. Black College of Biblical Studies as its dean from 1998 to 2015.

After his retirement, he continued preaching, lecturing and writing the “Finally Brethren” column for the Gospel Advocate, the “Bible Questions Answered” column in the Magnolia Messenger and the “Preacher Talk” circular.

Atop every “Preacher Talk,” May shared a motto: “Biblical in doctrine, conservative in practice, liberal in love.”

Faulkner University awarded an honorary Doctor of Christian Education to Cecil May Jr. at his home in Montgomery recently.

Todd Brenneman, Faulkner’s current Bible dean, expressed his admiration for May.

“His graciousness and humility while holding fast to the truth are an example to all of us,” Brenneman said in a statement.

The dean recalled May’s humility and servant heart: “He was a servant to servants.”

A life full of love

In a celebration of May’s life at the University Church of Christ in Montgomery, where May had been a longtime elder, family and friends emphasized the persona he presented was not just a facade. He was the same man in public and private. May’s love, compassion, godliness — they were all genuine.

“He was indeed who you thought he was — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control,” May III told attendees, referencing the fruit of the Spirit described in Galatians 5.

“He was so full of the love of Jesus, his cup overflowed into all of our lives,” added May’s other son, Richard, in a service that began with a congregational singing of “Jesus Loves Me.”

Photos and awards are displayed at a celebration of life for Cecil May Jr.

Fellow University church elder Sam Long noted the “countless souls” May inspired to come to God.

“Every now and then, God gives us men that affect the lives of everyone they encounter. That was Cecil May,” Long said. “The effect may be subtle, but the change is real. That’s Cecil May. You’re kinder, gentler, more understanding and more knowledgeable from his words. That’s Cecil May.”

May was buried alongside Winnie at the Pine Grove Church of Christ in Fulton, Miss.

The reality television star and Bible teacher — known for leading hundreds, if not thousands, of souls to Christ — died Sunday, May 25, at age 79.

Watch the memorial service:

The reality television star and Bible teacher — known for leading hundreds, if not thousands, of souls to Christ — died Sunday, May 25, at age 79.

His family had revealed last year that he faced early-stage Alzheimer’s and other health problems.

“While we will miss him we celebrate his victory and look forward to the resurrection,” the White’s Ferry Road Church of Christ in West Monroe, La., said in a Facebook post. “Please continue to keep the Robertson family in your prayers.”

Robertson served as a longtime elder of the White’s Ferry Road church. That congregation meets just a few miles from the Duck Commander/Buck Commander warehouse and showed up at least a half-dozen times on the “Duck Dynasty” TV series that featured the Robertson family.

Duck Commander Phil Robertson has died at age 79.

Last December, the church’s elders announced, “Due to health issues, Phil Robertson will be taking a step back from teaching the Unashamed Gospel Bible Class he has taught for many years here at White’s Ferry Road.”

Family members shared tributes to Robertson online.

In 2014, Phil Robertson prays at the end of a Sunday school class that he taught at the White’s Ferry Road Church of Christ in West Monroe

“My dad has gone to be with the Lord today!” Jase Robertson, one of Phil’s four sons, said on Facebook. “He will be missed but we know he is in good hands, and our family is good because God is very good! We will see him again!”

Alan Robertson, Phil’s oldest son, served alongside his father as a White’s Ferry Road elder. Alan Robertson also shared the preaching duties at White’s Ferry Road for a number of years. He stepped away from the ministry staff in 2012 to help with his family’s thriving Duck Commander business.

Alan Robertson said on social media:

Mike Kellett, Alan Robertson’s former co-preacher, is White’s Ferry Road’s senior minister and an elder.

“Beardless bro” Alan Robertson with the rest of his family in an undated photo.

“Will miss my fellow elder,” Kellett said on Facebook after the news of Phil Robertson’s death. “A great evangelist who kept us focused on the gospel and impacted thousands for the Lord.”

A post on the Duck Commander page said:

BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. Reach him at bobby@christianchronicle.org.

Bailey McBride

“He was already an accomplished writer, professor and provost when he saw — truly saw — an 18-year-old lost boy about to drop out of college, out of faith and out of hope in life,” LaMascus said. “Without any fanfare, Bailey helped me find a niche on campus and set me on a path toward finding my lost faith.”

For LaMascus and countless other students who passed through the halls of Oklahoma Christian University during McBride’s 58-year career, the quiet, unassuming scholar was a life-affirming, life-changing counselor.

For readers of The Christian Chronicle, McBride’s smiling face was the last thing they saw each month — though many acknowledged that they turned to his column first. For nearly three decades, his “Insight” appeared on the next-to-last page of this publication, offering Spirit-filled wisdom, sound, sage advice and heartfelt reflection.

McBride, a lifelong learner, teacher, journalist and friend to all, died May 12, 2025, at an assisted living facility in Brentwood, Tenn. He was 91.

In his final days, McBride’s family gathered close to him, praying, reading Scripture and playing his favorite music, including John Denver.

A love for learning and students

A graduation photo of Bailey McBride

Bailey McBride was born July 29, 1933, in Amarillo, Texas, to Almon Harry McBride and Elberta Bailey, from whom he got his name. He excelled academically despite changing schools 12 times as his parents traveled to Texas, California, Wyoming and Colorado. He graduated from Will Rogers High School in Tulsa, Okla., in 1951.

He studied at the University of Tulsa for a year, but dissatisfied, he left the school. He worked for Mid-Continent Pipeline Corp. until he could begin classes at Central Christian College, a newly born institution in Bartlesville, Okla., associated with Churches of Christ.

He earned an associate’s degree from Central and enrolled at David Lipscomb College (now Lipscomb University) in Nashville, Tenn. There he met Joyce Ann Warren of Cowan, Tenn. They married on April 28, 1956.

He returned to Bartlesville with his new bride, who began work as an elementary school teacher as Bailey stepped into the role of English instructor at Central Christian. He recalled a hot August day in 1956 when he taught his first classes — composition to three sections, totaling 75 freshmen, and Old English poetry to 18 sophomores.

An early photo of Joyce and Bailey McBride.

“My back ached, my legs were stiff, and my head was pounding,” he said. “But I had never been so happy. I loved interacting, thinking with, listening to and prodding students to think — students who were only slighter younger than I was.”

In 1958, he and Joyce moved back to Tennessee, where Bailey earned a master’s in English from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and began doctoral studies. He and Joyce moved to Albuquerque, N.M., where Bailey taught at the University of New Mexico before completing his doctorate. In Tennessee, the couple welcomed two daughters into the world, Melissa and Lynette.

In 1966, the McBrides moved to Oklahoma City, where Central Christian had relocated eight years prior and changed its name to Oklahoma Christian College. Bailey taught English at Oklahoma Christian, and Joyce began a decades-long tenure as pre-kindergarten teacher at the College Church of Christ (now Memorial Road Church of Christ). For nearly 50 years, every child who attended Memorial Road learned Psalm 23 with Joyce’s guidance. Their son, Michael, was born in Oklahoma.

The McBrides, from left, Lynette, Bailey, Michael, Joyce, Melissa.

After serving as associate professor, professor and chairman of the language and literature division, Bailey became OC’s associate academic dean in 1971. Four years later, he was named academic dean and became an elder of the College church. 

A newspaperman since age 12

In 1981, Oklahoma Christian acquired a struggling Christian Chronicle from owners John and Dottie Beckloff. Bible professor and College church minister Howard Norton served as editor and asked Bailey to join the staff as an editorial consultant and to write a column titled “Church Growth.” 

Bailey McBride in his office at Oklahoma Christian.

It was hardly a new experience for Bailey, who began writing columns at age 12, the same year he was baptized. 

“My dog, Tuto, was run over,” he said. “The (San Leandro) newspaper asked me to do a story about it to get people to drive more carefully through the neighborhoods. The editors liked my story so much that I began doing a column every three weeks about something connected with the community.”

He first learned of The Christian Chronicle in 1945, two years after its launch by founder and editor Olan Hicks, when the preacher for the San Leandro Church of Christ brought a few copies to Bible class. In 1947, he read a Chronicle story about Otis Gatewood, a missionary who traveled to Germany to teach the Gospel after the devastation of World War II. 

Bailey’s first columns for the Chronicle focused on church plants, thriving congregations and mission work. A group of “dedicated amateurs” produced the paper — often late at night due to their teaching schedules, he recalled.

But the effort was worthwhile, he added.

“I have always believed that communities are never any better than their best newspapers,” he said. “I felt that, when the Chronicle was a strong and vibrant news source, then the church (would have) a greater sense of unity.” 

“I have always believed that communities are never any better than their best newspapers. I felt that, when the Chronicle was a strong and vibrant news source, then the church (would have) a greater sense of unity.” 

He continued to teach and administer for Oklahoma Christian. In 1990, he became vice president for academic affairs. Four years later, he was named provost. In 1996, he began his decade-long tenure as the Chronicle’s editor. He was named director of OC’s Institute for Excellence in Learning and became director of the university’s Honors Program.

In 2004, Bailey was inducted into the Oklahoma Higher Education Hall of Fame. He returned to the classroom for another decade, retiring in 2014.

Joyce and Bailey McBride

“I had no intention of retiring at the time,” he wrote in his April 2014 Insight. “For most of the past 16 years, I have joked that I wanted to die lecturing on modern poetry or teaching an adult Bible class on Job.”

He loved God, people and good books

Joyce McBride died April 16, 2015 — 12 days before their 59th anniversary. In 2017, Bailey married Linda Samples. The next year, he published his final Insight column as he and Linda made plans to travel the globe — a lifelong passion of Bailey’s.

Bailey and Linda McBride

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted their plans, so the couple spent the long lockdowns at the Tealridge Independent Living community in Edmond reading books and keeping each other company. Linda McBride died in August 2023. Last year, as Bailey’s health began to deteriorate, his family moved him to Morning Pointe Senior Living in Brentwood. 

Bailey McBride and Lindy Adams

Lindy Adams, a former student of Bailey’s and a staff member of The Christian Chronicle, and Alan Phillips, the newspaper’s stewardship officer, hosted a farewell gathering for Bailey as he began the journey to Tennessee. 

“He had an amazing ability to remember obscure details of students’ lives — their majors, hometowns, parents, siblings, romantic interests, life choices,” said Adams, whose husband, Ken, was a longtime music professor at OC and director of the university’s Chorale.

“Bailey changed my life,” Lindy Adams said. “He sparked in me a love for what he loved, Oklahoma Christian. His wise counsel over the years to Ken and me steadied us in the darkest of moments. He was dedicated to the arts and travel, as were we. As my mother lay dying, it was Bailey who called me on a pay phone at St. Thomas Hospital in Nashville to comfort me.”

Bailey McBride’s children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren gather around him during his 90th birthday celebration in the library at Oklahoma Christian University.

For Lynn McMillon, Bailey was a co-worker at Oklahoma Christian, a co-elder at the Memorial Road church and a next-door neighbor.

“We often referred to him as a prince of a Christian gentleman,” said McMillon, former chair of OC’s Bible department and the Chronicle’s president emeritus. “My wife Joy and I, along with scores of other friends and students, dearly loved Bailey for his warmth and genuine interest in all of our lives.”

Recently, Lindy Adams asked Bailey what brought him the greatest joy as he looked back on his life. 

The staff of The Christian Chronicle meets in November 1989. From left are advertising manager Cynthia Fletcher, production specialist Linda Parker, managing editor Joy McMillon and staff writer R. Scott LaMascus.

“Besides his family, he said it was seeing generations of young people grow to become true believers,” she said, “and live lives of dedication and service.”

Scott LaMascus was one of those young people. With Bailey’s encouragement, he completed his degree at Oklahoma Christian and went on to serve the university for more than three decades as an English professor, director of the Honors Program and chief academic officer. He served under Bailey as the Chronicle’s managing editor. 

LaMascus is founding director of the McBride Center for Public Humanities at OC, a nationally known project for celebrating books and writers with important messages for the Christian community.  

“Bailey loved God, people and good books along the path of wisdom and love,” LaMascus said. “I merely followed Bailey as he followed Christ.”

Additional reporting: Lindy Adams, Bobby Ross Jr.

Bailey McBride

A Celebration of Life service is scheduled for on June 28, 2025, in Oklahoma City. Memorial gifts may be made to the McBride Center for Humanities at Oklahoma Christian University or the McBride Endowment at The Christian Chronicle. Memories and pictures may be shared with the family at bailey.mcbride.memories@gmail.com.

A proud alumnus of Southwestern Christian College, Robinson remained an indelible part of its musical legacy, tied not just by history but by the bonds of friendship and faith.

Harold Robinson, retired director of the Dallas Church of Christ chorus and minister of music for the Central Pointe Church of Christ in Dallas, died March 25.

He was more than a gifted singer — he was a bridge between generations of musicians and worshipers.

Robinson belonged to the Dallas musical contingent that embraced students like me, welcoming us into a tradition of excellence and devotion. Through his warmth and generosity, he became not only a mentor but a brother in spirit.

In the 1980s, two choirs stood at the pinnacle of Dallas’ a cappella gospel tradition: Acappella Alliance, under the direction of Clifford Mills, and the Dallas West Church of Christ chorus, where Robinson was one of three directors.

These groups didn’t just perform — they moved souls. They lifted spirits. They turned sanctuaries into sanctuaries of sound, where harmonies carried prayers to the heavens.

Watching Robinson direct was like witnessing a master painter at work. His leadership was quiet yet commanding, his voice a vessel for something far greater than melody alone. Every note he sang was steeped in love — love for the Lord, for his church and for those who had the privilege of listening.

As minister of music at Dallas West, Robinson stood alongside the late Reginald Dulin, a preacher whose words could shake the very foundation of a church.

Together, they were a force of nature. Dulin’s sermons called souls to their feet, and Robinson’s music lifted them higher still.

I will never forget the revival in Cincinnati when Robinson and Dulin’s son, Rodney, came to lead worship. The church was overflowing long before the service began — people arriving two hours early just to claim a seat.

It wasn’t enough. Every church van from across the city was summoned to shuttle in worshipers. The crowd came expectant and left transformed.

“That night, something holy moved through the air. Robinson and Rodney Dulin didn’t just lead a service; they ushered us into the presence of God.”

That night, something holy moved through the air. Robinson and Rodney Dulin didn’t just lead a service; they ushered us into the presence of God.

And when Robinson opened his mouth to sing — Lord, have mercy — everything shifted. His voice was not just sound but spirit, not just music but ministry. It was anointed — unmistakably so.

Robinson possessed a rare gift, but he never hoarded it. He gave it freely, leaving every room fuller than he found it. His kindness mirrored his artistry — effortless, abundant, sincere.

The last time I saw Harold Robinson, we reminisced about days gone by and spoke of seeing each other again soon. Even in something as simple as a text message, asking for Clifford Mills’ number, Harold responded as he always did — with warmth and encouragement.

That was Harold — steadfast, gracious, giving until the end. He died on March 25, 2025, at age 68.

Rest well, my friend. When my time comes, I’ll be listening for your voice in the heavenly chorus. Until then, sing on.

Memorial arrangements will be announced in the coming days.

JOHN EDMERSON is a former member of The Christian Chronicle’s Editorial Board. He serves as associate minister for the Figueroa Church of Christ in Los Angeles. He is also a well-known song writer among Churches of Christ.

In a feature published online and in the March print edition of The Christian Chronicle — heading to mailboxes soon — correspondent Ted Parks profiled the faithful Christian couple.

The piece highlighted the laughter and life lessons that marked the Huckabys’ eight decades of married life. They exchanged wedding vows on Dec. 23, 1944.

Read the Chronicle feature.

See Joe Huckaby’s full obituary.

Maxwell’s time at Southwestern — the only historically Black higher education institution associated with Churches of Christ — changed his life, and he became one of the fellowship’s most influential ministers.

“I was inspired to preach when I attended Southwestern and witnessed students preaching at such an early age,” Maxwell told The Christian Chronicle in 2010. “Before this time, I believed that preachers had to be ‘perfect,’ but when I saw that many of those students’ deportment was not as good as mine, I was convinced that I could preach.”

“I was inspired to preach when I attended Southwestern and witnessed students preaching at such an early age.”

Maxwell, who preached the Gospel for six decades, served in prominent leadership roles at Southwestern for a half-century and worked to foster Christian unity across racial lines, died Jan. 14 after a six-year battle with dementia. He was 86.

“Our ‘Lion in the Way’ … has officially entered into sweet rest. He fought a good fight,” his son James A. Maxwell, minister for the West End Church of Christ in Terrell, said in announcing his father’s passing. “As 1 Corinthians 16:13 says, be courageous, faithful and strong. This describes Dad to a tee. Rest well, Daddy.”

Hundreds filled Southwestern’s auditorium Jan. 30 to celebrate the life of James O. Maxwell, whom Dallas-area preachers and church leaders honored with the Living Legend Award during a citywide lectureship just last year.

The Cedar Crest Church of Christ hosted the 2024 event. Maxwell’s “imprint on the city of Dallas and the country will transcend generations to come,” Cedar Crest minister Jonathan W. Morrison said then.

Leonardo Gilbert, national director of the Crusade for Christ evangelistic campaign and gospel meeting, said he joins “the global community of believers in mourning” Maxwell’s death.

Maxwell — preacher, educator and author — made “a profound imprint on Churches of Christ and the thousands of lives he touched through his ministry and leadership,” said Gilbert, minister and elder of the Sheldon Heights Church of Christ in Chicago.

Kristopher K. DarDar Sr., minister for the East Pointe Church of Christ in Fort Worth, Texas, was one of numerous preachers mentored by Maxwell.

“I am grateful for his love for young preachers, his academic rigor and humble spirit!” DarDar wrote in a tribute. “He will never be forgotten as the brains of a spiritual and scholastic movement, and now he has finally received the reward” about which he preached for decades.

Jonathan Morrison, minister for the Cedar Crest Church of Christ in Dallas, offers a tribute at James O. Maxwell’s funeral on behalf of the “Sons of Southwestern.” Maxwell, a longtime vice president at Southwestern Christian College, mentored generations of ministry students.

A banner at James O. Maxwell’s memorial service displays pictures of him through the years.

Pallbearers load James O. Maxwell’s casket into a hearse.

Lynn McMillon, who retired as the Chronicle’s president and CEO in 2019, recalled Maxwell as “a great friend and Christian man.”

“He was the primary, if not sole, reason that the Chronicle finally broke through to the African American fellowship,” McMillon said, noting that Maxwell helped connect the Oklahoma-based international newspaper for Churches of Christ with thousands of new subscribers.

Born Oct. 13, 1938, to Eddie and Mable Maxwell in Tulsa, Okla., James O’Leary Maxwell later moved to Toledo, Ohio. At age 12, he gave his life to Jesus at the Dorr Street Church of Christ in Toledo.

Maxwell graduated from Southwestern in 1959 — just the first in a long list of degrees he earned at institutions ranging from Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., to Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

He married Betty, his wife of 60 years, on Oct. 31, 1964.

James O. Maxwell’s survivors include Betty Maxwell, his wife of 60 years.

Attendees pose for a photo at James O. Maxwell’s funeral.

He served as the academic dean at Southwestern from 1971 to 1978 and then as his alma mater’s vice president of institutional expansion from 1978 to 2019 — working alongside the late Jack Evans Sr., the college’s longtime president.

He often traveled on the weekends to preach, serving as the minister for congregations in Mississippi, Ohio, Kansas and Texas from the mid-1970s until the late 1980s. 

He preached for the Southern Hills Church of Christ in Dallas from 1990 to 2006, when he “retired” only to accept a second stint as minister of development and outreach at the Roswell Church of Christ in Kansas City, Kan. For years after that, he flew back and forth from Dallas to Kansas City.

Sammie Berry, minister and elder of the Dallas West Church of Christ, presents the Living Legend Award to James O. Maxwell in 2024.

Besides his wife and son James Apollos, Maxwell’s survivors include daughter Miriam Renee Smith, son Julian Deshawn Maxwell, six grandchildren and a host of other relatives.

The family noted in his obit:

“He was a trooper until the end. Although his memory faded and body weakened, the spark in his eye, his wit and dynamic smile never left him.

“He was a trooper until the end. Although his memory faded and body weakened, the spark in his eye, his wit and dynamic smile never left him.”

“He attended services of the Church as much as possible until his health would not allow. As his memory faded, he kept his treasured books on the sofa by his side. Dr. Maxwell loved boxing and watching the NBA on TNT. The Los Angeles Lakers were his favorite basketball team. He loved wings, soup, reading, the news, current events and Westerns. Dr. Maxwell was a great friend and confidant to everyone. For years during the holidays Dr. & Mrs. Maxwell invited students who were not able to go to their homes over to his home for dinner. Dr. Maxwell often spent his own money to support students and people in need. Not only generous with his time and resources, he would occasionally loan his own vehicles to students who needed transportation.”

Hours before a celebration of Jack Evans Sr.’s life in 2019, longtime Southwestern vice president James O. Maxwell visits a special room at the college that pays tribute to pioneer African American preachers.

BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. Reach him at bobby@christianchronicle.org.

He didn’t say what that meant exactly — just that it landed him in front of a judge.

“What do you want to do in life?” he recalled the judge asking him.

“Right now I’m working in a funeral home,” Watkins said. “I want to be an undertaker.”

The judge replied, “The road you’re traveling, you ain’t gonna be no undertaker. You’re going to be taken under.”

Next to a picture of the late Andrew J. Hairston, Jonathan Givens leads Hairston’s family into the auditorium of the Simpson Street Church of Christ. Givens, senior minister for the Southside Church of Christ in Montgomery, Ala., served as minister for the Hairston family.

But the judge did more than discipline Watkins. He promised to keep an eye on him and help him stay on the right path. 

He made good on that promise, Watkins said. “He always had an encouraging word for me. God first. Prayer second. Stay focused, and God will direct your path.”

On Saturday, a gray-haired Watkins shared that story at the “Homegoing Service” for the judge, Andrew Jasper Hairston. 

Then, as the congregation sang “Mansion, Robe and Crown,” staffers with the Willie A. Watkins Funeral Home escorted Hairston’s casket from the Simpson Street Church of Christ auditorium.

The Andrew Hairston Memorial Chorus sings hymns including “Waymaker” during the Homegoing Service at the Simpson Street Church of Christ.

Ministers, Atlanta city officials and believers from across the U.S. and the African nation of Liberia lined the pews for the three-and-a-half-hour service. 

Speakers highlighted Hairston’s accomplishments: Attorney for Martin Luther King Jr. Prosecutor of notorious pornographer Larry Flynt. Atlanta’s first Black chief magistrate judge. Military chaplain. And preacher at Simpson Street for some 55 years. 

Hairston died Jan. 14. He was 92.

“He held many titles that a lot of Black men and women, especially of his generation, would dream of,” said Kenneth Rucker II, one of Hairston’s five grandchildren. 

He took the title of “Pawpaw” with equal seriousness and dedication, Rucker said. 

When Rucker was 11 and his dad deployed to Kuwait for a year, “my grandfather would take me to get my hair cut and then take me and my sister to get KFC,” Rucker said. “When I outgrew my suits, he and my grandmother paid for new suits.”

‘Can you keep my girlfriend company?’

Hairston and his wife, Jeanne, met after his graduation from Southwestern Christian College in Texas. In their later years, whenever Hairston needed to be away from the house, he’d call Pat Applewhite, a 49-year member at Simpson Street.

“Applewhite, this is brother Hairston,” he’d say. “Can you keep my girlfriend company?”

Pat Applewhite speaks during the Hairston memorial service.

“Yes, leader. When do you need me?” Applewhite replied. She’d visit with Jeanne until she got another phone call. “Applewhite, this is brother Hairston. You are released.” 

“I’d look over at sister Hairston, and she’d be there smiling,” Applewhite recalled. “She’d say, ‘Is that my boyfriend?’” 

After nearly 70 years of marriage, Jeanne Hairston died on Oct. 10, 2022.

Another grandson, Alexander Hairston, read a poem, “The Pillar.” He thanked his grandparents for providing “the blueprint on how to live life well.”

“You were there for our first steps, our first heartbeats, our first games,” the younger Hairston said. “You were the strength that runs through our veins.”

Alexander Hairston reads an original poem, “The Pillar,” written for his grandfather.

Not a ‘hellfire-and-brimstone’ preacher

Charlie Simmons was 17 when Andrew Hairston began preaching for Simpson Street in 1961. It didn’t take long for the 29-year-old preacher to persuade Simmons to be immersed in baptism.

“We had never seen anybody work like him. That’s why all of us got two jobs,” said Simmons, now 81 and a deacon at Simpson Street.

Charlie Simmons, right, greets fellow Christians as he walks toward the Simpson Street Church of Christ building from a nearby school, used for overflow parking.

Tony Phillips was 12 when Hairston baptized him in 1976. Now city administrator for the Atlanta suburb of Fairburn, Ga., Phillips also serves in ministry for the Camp Creek Church of Christ in Atlanta. 

Across the city, “I doubt you could go to a congregation and not find folks who, at some point, were under his ministry,” Phillips said.

“I doubt you could go to a congregation and not find folks who, at some point, were under his ministry.”

Willie Jackson first attended Simpson Street four decades ago. After hearing Hairston’s sermon, Jackson called his mother and said, “Oh Lord, hellfire and brimstone is gone!” 

Instead of pounding the pulpit and focusing on divine wrath, “he was focused on you and your relationship with God,” Jackson said. “And it was just so special.”

He loved Liberia, waited for God’s justice

Hairston’s ministry extended far beyond Georgia. 

Members of Atlanta’s Liberian community attended the service. One of them, Mabel Green, praised Hairston for the assistance he gave them in the 1970s as they navigated U.S. immigration law.

“His love for Liberia is immeasurable,” Green said. Along with minister R.C. Wells, Hairston launched Wells-Hairston High School in Liberia’s capital, Monrovia. Hundreds of students have graduated from the school, including George Weah, a soccer star who served as Liberia’s president from 2018 to 2024.

Six years ago, O.J. Shabazz and other Christians incorporated a foundation for the school. At the memorial service, Shabazz, minister for the Harlem Church of Christ in New York, assured Hairston’s family that he was committed to “keep the doors of the school open” and continue the work Wells and Hairston started.

Jerry Taylor, a longtime minister and Bible professor at Abilene Christian University in Texas, said that Hairston “viewed the pulpit as a solemn platform from which he eloquently addressed the important domestic and international issues of the day. 

An usher greets visitors at the beginning of the Homegoing Service for Andrew Hairston.

“In the evening years of his life, Dr. Hairston grew troubled by the national erosion of the principles he had spent his long life defending,” Taylor said. As a Black man who grew up in the Jim Crow South, Hairston knew the dangers of racism veiled as government policy, Taylor added. But he also knew about the apostle John’s vision in Revelation 18, which predicted the fall of “Babylon the great” and the vindication of God’s people. 

“This hope,” Taylor said, “sustained Dr. Hairston in the darkest hours of disappointment.”

A carpenter’s belt in his wardrobe

Although Hairston was an advocate for justice, “his sermons were never focused on civil rights,” said Geraldine Sharpe, who served as the minister’s clerical assistant. “His advocacy was for education and righteousness … which placed him in the center of the civil rights movement.”

Geraldine Sharpe speaks about the legacy of Andrew Hairston during the memorial service.

He wanted men and women to get involved in ministry. He published a study on the role of women in the church, “and for years one of our sisters in Christ served as director of our educational program,” Sharpe said. Countless Christian women have served as teachers and ministry directors at Simpson Street.

Hairston was a builder — of lives and of edifices. 

“I was surprised that he came in one day wearing a carpenter’s belt,” Sharpe said. At the church’s former facility, Hairston helped to construct and repair his office and the ladies’ lounge.

A historical marker outside the Simpson Street Church of Christ’s building notes the accomplishments of Andrew Hairston.

That old building collapsed in 2011, four years after the church constructed a new meeting place across the street. Last year, the church finished demolition of its former facilities and broke ground on an apartment building. Partnering with government agencies, the church plans to create affordable housing for residents who’d otherwise be priced out of the neighborhood by gentrification and urban renewal.

Sharpe was born in the neighborhood near the church building. She moved away for a while, but returned in part because of the church’s housing initiative, a longtime dream of Hairston’s.

“We might consider putting a carpenter’s belt in our wardrobes so that we would all have a place to stash our love, our blessings, our desire to help others.”

“We might consider putting a carpenter’s belt in our wardrobes,” she said, “so that we would all have a place to stash our love, our blessings, our desire to help others.”

The site of the former Simpson Street building has construction items for a future affordable housing development.

Above all else, Hairston was a servant, said Rucker, his grandson, who studied at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Ga. His grandfather believed that success — as a preacher, a judge or an undertaker — required a denial of self, as Jesus tells his followers in Mark 10:45: “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

“He believed that we all have a purpose,” Rucker said, “and that we should come together to serve each other.”

Kenneth Rucker II eulogizes his grandfather, Andrew J. Hairston, from the pulpit of the Simpson Street Church of Christ in Atlanta.

ERIK TRYGGESTAD is President and CEO of The Christian Chronicle. Contact erik@christianchronicle.org. Follow him on X @eriktryggestad.

Mourners visit the casket holding Andrew J. Hairston as Chris Turner leads singing at the Simpson Street Church of Christ in Atlanta.

Ministers from across the nation embrace members of the Hairston family during the memorial service.

A family pays their respects at Andrew Hairston’s casket before the memorial service.

Ushers placed boxes of tissues throughout the auditorium of the Simpson Street Church of Christ before the memorial service.

Ministers from across the nation take a group photo at the conclusion of the memorial service for Andrew Hairston.

There’s also a honky-tonk in the tale.

At an assisted-living home about 45 miles south of Nashville, more than 50 family members, friends and fellow Christians gathered around “Nannie” and “Gran” Huckaby — Ruby Irene, 97, and Joe Marshall Jr., 101 — as the couple celebrated 80 years of marriage.

“Nannie” and “Gran” Huckaby celebrate their 80th wedding anniversary in Columbia, Tenn.

Cupcakes with white icing stacked beneath a bride-and-groom cake topper adorned a table near the dining room where the couple and their guests sat. Photos on another table provided a visual stroll through Joe and Irene’s many years together.

The Huckabys worshiped with Columbia’s Graymere Church of Christ for more than 35 years, their attendance punctuated by brief periods at other congregations. Later, they tuned in to Graymere online before moving to the assisted-living facility, where Joe now goes down every Sunday to a service led by Columbia’s West 7th Street Church of Christ.

“I think when you both have the same faith … it makes a difference,” Irene said. Her husband underscored the importance of raising children in a Christian community, explaining that he and Irene made it a point to take their children to church.

Longtime Graymere minister John Vaughan remembered the Huckabys’ commitment to each other and the church. Vaughan preached at Graymere for 37 years, arriving in his late 20s when the congregation was only 11 years old. Vaughan met Joe and Irene in 1967.

“They were not showy,” Vaughan said. “They kind of led by their example. They just lived the Christian life.”

A sign outside an assisted-living facility in Columbia, Tenn., celebrates the Huckabys’ 80th anniversary.

Steven McAdams, Joe and Irene’s 13 year-old great-grandson, echoed Vaughan’s admiration. McAdams traveled to Columbia from Amarillo, Texas, to honor his great-grandparents on the eve of their 80th anniversary.

“It’s amazing. … It’s kind of rare,” McAdams said about their long marriage. He described their relationship as “very strong” but tempered with humor. “They bicker with each other a little bit, and they love to chat a lot.

“I feel lucky and blessed that I get to still see them to this day.”

Guys, gals and NuGrape

“No. 1, he was smart. And … good-looking,” Nannie said about Gran. “And what else? Dependable.”

That was eight decades back, and the attraction lasted. 

Joe and Irene Huckaby in a photo from the mid-1940s, shortly after they married. The photo was one of several on display at the celebration of their 80 years of matrimony.

Irene recalled becoming a Christian at age 14 at a “baptizing hole” near Columbia. Joe was baptized at the city’s Highland Church of Christ, responding to a message by Joe Sanders, a well-known preacher and David Lipscomb College Bible professor.

It’s the first half of the 1940s. After spending the morning in worship, “Sunday evening you’d get out and ride around … that’s all there was to do in a small town,” Joe said. 

He and his friends stopped at what he called a “honky-tonk,” an establishment into which girls rarely ventured. The guys would buy the girls outside a soft drink — a NuGrape, Irene specified — and take it to them.

Joe’s brother, Clifton, knew Irene’s sister Ann. One Sunday night, Joe and his friends stopped by Irene’s house, but she’d already left. When they saw her in a car outside the honky-tonk talking to Joe’s cousin, they asked her to join them. She declined, asking the cousin to take her home.

Irene had an agenda, hoping Joe would “get the message,” she said — the message that she “was interested,” explained Connie Bedwell, the youngest of the couple’s three children. Irene wanted to see Joe without the cousin or any other guys along for the ride.

Joe got the message, but before their relationship got off the ground, Irene left for Detroit with her brother for work. She wrote him a “Dear Joe” letter, Bedwell said.

The sojourn up north was short. The brother bought her a bus ticket back in less than a week. Before long, the future Nannie and Gran were engaged.

A cloud of tobacco-spitting witnesses

The journey to matrimony was bumpy — and about 60 miles long.

Raised on 100 acres, Joe had four brothers and four sisters, his family earning a living raising cattle, selling milk and growing tobacco. His mom depended heavily on him.

“You don’t know what you’re taking away from me,” Joe’s mother told Irene. 

“Well, I guess your loss is my gain,” Irene fired back.

“She got off to a bad start,” Joe quipped.

Irene and Joe Huckaby got dressed “Up!” for a recent Halloween, portraying Ellie and Carl Fredricksen from the bittersweet Disney/Pixar animated film.

The couple decided to tie the knot on Saturday, Dec. 23, 1944, in Columbia. When the big day came, they kept their plans quiet. 

“If she got him back, I wouldn’t get him again,” Irene said of her soon-to-be mother-in-law.

The plot threatened to unravel when they couldn’t get the blood test results for their marriage license. Plan B was to head south to a state that didn’t require blood tests. That meant a 60-mile drive south to Athens, Ala., or a 100-mile drive southwest to Iuka, Miss.

Joe borrowed his brother Clifton’s car, and the couple took off for Alabama.

They arrived in Athens mid-afternoon. Though no blood test was required, Joe had to get a quick physical.

The ceremony took place at the Limestone County courthouse, where several Athens citizens sat around a potbelly stove warming themselves and spitting tobacco.

“I kind of lied about her age,” Joe confessed. He said Irene was 18. She was 17 1/2, and he was 21.

The men around the stove happily served as witnesses. “Give ’em five dollars and they’d sign for anything,” Irene recalled. 

The couple drove back to Columbia, stopped for groceries at the A&P and went home for the first night of their 80 years together.

Working well together … unless it’s wallpaper

World War II soon intervened. Joe was drafted but deemed unable to serve because of a kidney issue. He left farming and went to work at a local chemical plant. Irene gave birth to their children, Judith, Stan and Connie. 

Judith Everett and Connie Bedwell join their parents Joe and Irene Huckaby, during the couples’ 80th-anniversary party at the Huckaby’s assisted-living facility in Columbia, Tenn.

Meticulous lists of real estate and automobile purchases kept by the couple document their growth as the nation recovered from the war and proceeded toward a new millennium. A 1930 Ford appears early on the list. Their first Cadillac arrives in 1987. They bought their final car, a Lexus, new in 2014.

Joe and Irene paid $3,500 for their first home in 1947, selling it two years later for a $2,000 profit. Their records show about 10 more real estate purchases through the decades, including a farm in 1968 and Florida condos in the 1980s.

“If I bought a lemon, I’ll make lemonade.”

After retiring in 1981, Joe sold his farm and moved to the city. But golf left him restless. To cope with retirement, he bought a house to restore. It turned out to be overpriced, and meeting the demands of tenants became a burden.

“If I bought a lemon, I’ll make lemonade,” Connie Bedwell remembered her dad saying. 

“We drank a whole lot of lemonade,” Irene added. 

“We drank a whole lot of lemonade.”

When Joe asked Irene what she wanted for their 50th anniversary, the answer was easy. Soon, there were no more tenants.

While Joe and Irene solved problems together, they knew their limits. 

“There was one thing we couldn’t do together, and that was hang wallpaper,” Joe said. “Seemed like everything we … did, we went at it the hard way.”

Before moving to Panama City, Fla., after Joe retired, the couple bought mattresses for their new Florida home and strapped it to their pickup truck. On the way down, the blue tarp over the pickup bed flew off, scattering the load.

A nondescript notebook condenses into one page a lifetime of auto and truck ownership by the Huckabys, mirroring a similar list of the homes the couple bought together.

“Oh Lord, what are we going to do?” Irene asked Joe. “He looked at me and … he said, ‘The first thing I’m going to do is get off of this interstate.’ … He taped everything back together to keep it from blowing away.'”

They later learned it was cheaper — and much easier — to buy a new mattress in Florida.

‘What the Lord says about marriage … they put into practice’

Retirement gave the couple time to travel. In the late 1990s, a church friend who organized bus tours invited Joe and Irene. A 21-day trip took them to California. Later the couple made 11 cruises, their destinations including the Panama Canal, Spain, Portugal and Italy.

The Huckabys link their long life together with a shared faith. John Vaughan, their longtime preacher, agrees.

“What the Lord says about marriage, … they put into practice, and it made their lives very successful. I’d venture to say that separation … never entered their mind.”

“What the Lord says about marriage, … they put into practice, and it made their lives very successful,” Vaughan said, describing the couple as fun to be around and happy. “I’d venture to say that separation … never entered their mind. That was just not the kind of people they were.”

Asked to define love, Joe and Irene gave different answers.  

Irene “Nannie” Huckaby asks her husband of 80 years, Joe “Gran” Huckaby, for a kiss, and he obliges.

“I think it’s respecting your spouse” rather than feeling “like you have the whole say-so,” Irene said. “You need to consult him.”

Joe’s response: “You’ve got to work together” and “have feelings for each other.”

Irene added, “When he tells you to jump, you say, ‘How high?’” 

That made Joe laugh — and her family wince. “Nannie!” they exclaimed.

Wished a happy 80th anniversary, Irene responded, “I hope we have 80 more.”

TED PARKS is a Nashville-based correspondent for The Christian Chronicle. A contributor to the Chronicle since the 1990s, he teaches Spanish at Lipscomb University. To offer feedback on this story, contact letters@christianchronicle.org.

Maxwell’s time at Southwestern — the only historically Black higher education institution associated with Churches of Christ — changed his life, and he became one of the fellowship’s most influential ministers.

“I was inspired to preach when I attended Southwestern and witnessed students preaching at such an early age,” Maxwell told The Christian Chronicle in 2010. “Before this time, I believed that preachers had to be ‘perfect,’ but when I saw that many of those students’ deportment was not as good as mine, I was convinced that I could preach.”

James O. Maxwell

Maxwell, who preached the Gospel for six decades, served in prominent leadership roles at Southwestern for a half-century and worked to foster Christian unity across racial lines, died Jan. 14 after a six-year battle with dementia. He was 86.

“Our ‘Lion in the Way’ … has officially entered into sweet rest. He fought a good fight,” his son James A. Maxwell, minister for the West End Church of Christ in Terrell, said in announcing his father’s passing. “As 1 Corinthians 16:13 says, be courageous, faithful and strong. This describes Dad to a tee. Rest well, Daddy.”

Just last year, Dallas-area preachers and church leaders presented James O. Maxwell with the Living Legend Award during a citywide lectureship.

The Cedar Crest Church of Christ hosted the 2024 event. Maxwell’s “imprint on the city of Dallas and the country will transcend generations to come,” Cedar Crest minister Jonathan W. Morrison said then.

Leonardo Gilbert, national director of the Crusade for Christ evangelistic campaign and gospel meeting, said he joins “the global community of believers in mourning” Maxwell’s death.

Maxwell — preacher, educator and author — made “a profound imprint on Churches of Christ and the thousands of lives he touched through his ministry and leadership,” said Gilbert, minister and elder of the Sheldon Heights Church of Christ in Chicago.

Kristopher K. DarDar Sr., minister for the East Pointe Church of Christ in Fort Worth, Texas, was one of numerous preachers mentored by Maxwell.

“I am grateful for his love for young preachers, his academic rigor and humble spirit!” DarDar wrote in a tribute. “He will never be forgotten as the brains of a spiritual and scholastic movement, and now he has finally received the reward” about which he preached for decades.

James O. Maxwell preaches at the 71st annual National Lectureship in Chicago in 2015.

Lynn McMillon, who retired as the Chronicle’s president and CEO in 2019, recalled Maxwell as “a great friend and Christian man.”

“He was the primary, if not sole, reason that the Chronicle finally broke through to the African American fellowship,” McMillon said, noting that Maxwell helped connect the Oklahoma-based international newspaper for Churches of Christ with thousands of new subscribers.

Born Oct. 13, 1938, to Eddie and Mable Maxwell in Tulsa, Okla., James O’Leary Maxwell later moved to Toledo, Ohio. At age 12, he gave his life to Jesus at the Dorr Street Church of Christ in Toledo.

Maxwell graduated from Southwestern in 1959 — just the first in a long list of degrees he earned at institutions ranging from Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., to Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

He married Betty, his wife of 60 years, on Oct. 31, 1964.

He served as the academic dean at Southwestern from 1971 to 1978 and then as his alma mater’s vice president of institutional expansion from 1978 to 2019 — working alongside the late Jack Evans Sr., the college’s longtime president.

He often traveled on the weekends to preach, serving as the minister for congregations in Mississippi, Ohio, Kansas and Texas from the mid-1970s until the late 1980s. 

He preached for the Southern Hills Church of Christ in Dallas from 1990 to 2006, when he “retired” only to accept a second stint as minister of development and outreach at the Roswell Church of Christ in Kansas City, Kan. For years after that, he flew back and forth from Dallas to Kansas City.

Sammie Berry, minister and elder of the Dallas West Church of Christ, presents the Living Legend Award to James O. Maxwell in 2024.

Besides his wife and son James Apollos, Maxwell’s survivors include daughter Miriam Renee Smith, son Julian Deshawn Maxwell, six grandchildren and a host of other relatives.

The family noted in his obit:

“He was a trooper until the end. Although his memory faded and body weakened, the spark in his eye, his wit and dynamic smile never left him.

“He was a trooper until the end. Although his memory faded and body weakened, the spark in his eye, his wit and dynamic smile never left him.”

“He attended services of the Church as much as possible until his health would not allow. As his memory faded, he kept his treasured books on the sofa by his side. Dr. Maxwell loved boxing and watching the NBA on TNT. The Los Angeles Lakers were his favorite basketball team. He loved wings, soup, reading, the news, current events and Westerns. Dr. Maxwell was a great friend and confidant to everyone. For years during the holidays Dr. & Mrs. Maxwell invited students who were not able to go to their homes over to his home for dinner. Dr. Maxwell often spent his own money to support students and people in need. Not only generous with his time and resources, he would occasionally loan his own vehicles to students who needed transportation.”

His funeral service is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Jan. 30 at Southwestern’s auditorium.

Hours before a celebration of Jack Evans Sr.’s life in 2019, longtime Southwestern vice president James O. Maxwell visits a special room at the college that pays tribute to pioneer African American preachers.

BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. Reach him at bobby@christianchronicle.org.

Hairston was an acclaimed orator who preached for churches around the globe. He was a fiery attorney who defended civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and prosecuted Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt. And he was Atlanta’s first Black chief magistrate judge.

Andrew Hairston preaches at the Simpson Street Church of Christ in 2012. Hairston retired in August 2017 after nearly 56 years as the congregation’s minister.

The 92-year-old minister died peacefully Tuesday morning, Jan. 14, a little more than 63 years after he preached his first sermon for the Simpson Street Church of Christ in Atlanta. The North Carolina native moved to Georgia to minister for the predominantly Black congregation amid rising racial tensions and a burgeoning civil rights movement.

Hairston became a part of that movement. In the summer of tumultuous 1968, he was among 40-plus prominent Black and White ministers who gathered in a hotel near the Atlanta airport to discuss ways to improve race relations in Churches of Christ. The two-day meeting occurred less than three months after King’s assassination.

Hairston kept championing the causes of equality and justice during more than a half-century as pulpit minister for the Simpson Street church.

Marcus T. Watkins

“Dr. Hairston was not only a devoted minister but also a spiritual and social icon whose impact reached far beyond our congregation,” said Marcus T. Watkins, senior minister for Simpson Street, where Hairston continued to serve as minister emeritus. “His unwavering faith, compassion and dedication to serving others have left an indelible mark on our church, the community and the lives he touched.”

Born near Winston-Salem, N.C., the 13th of 15 children, Hairston lost his father, a tenant farmer, at age 6. His mother cleaned homes during the day to support the family. After high school, Hairston took a job driving an ice cream truck. A sister living in Detroit encouraged him to attend historically Black Southwestern Christian College in Terrell, Texas, and persuaded her Sunday school class to provide a $50 scholarship.

With most colleges and universities in Churches of Christ refusing to admit Black students, Hairston became part of a pioneering generation at Southwestern, which opened its Terrell, Texas, campus in 1950. After completing a two-year degree, Hairston stayed for a bachelor’s in Bible, becoming one of Southwestern’s first four-year graduates.

Jeanne and Andrew Hairston.

Hairston accepted an interim minister position in Fort Worth, where he met Jeanne. They were married for more than 70 years until Jeanne’s death in 2022. Hairston earned two additional bachelor’s degrees before enrolling at Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University. He continued to preach in Fort Worth until learning about a vacancy at Simpson Street.

Hairston and his family moved to Atlanta in 1961 — to preach for the church and aid in the struggle for civil rights, he told the Chronicle in a 2012 interview as the church celebrated his 50th year behind the pulpit.

Hairston recalled Atlanta meetings where he sat across the table from King. Hairston was a leader in Operation Breadbasket, a program begun in 1962 by King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference that encouraged businesses to adopt fair hiring practices. Hairston was one of the operation’s “call men,” or local chairmen.

“I never did a lot of preaching on civil rights as such,” Hairston said. “I would deal with the subject, and deal with righteousness, and get my folk involved in the action.”

He observed that pulpits of the time — both Black and White — avoided advocacy of the movement.

“It’s kind of a Church of Christ ethos — that that’s beyond, that’s not what we’re here for,” Hairston said. “We’re here to baptize and save people.”

When Hairston enrolled in law school, he had no intention of practicing. A working knowledge of legal matters would make him a better minister, he reasoned.

But after passing the bar, he became assistant solicitor general in the state court of Fulton County. Assigned to prosecute obscenity violations, one of his most famous cases involved notorious publisher Flynt, convicted by Fulton County State Court on 11 counts of obscenity in 1979. By the time Hairston helped prosecute Flynt, he had been appointed Atlanta city solicitor by Maynard Jackson, Atlanta’s first Black mayor. Then came an appointment to Atlanta City Court by Mayor Andrew Young. Hairston was elected as the court’s chief judge in 1982 — the first African-American to hold the office — and served until 2005.

The Wells-Hairston High School in the West African nation of Liberia was co-founded by R.C. Wells and Andrew Hairston. Jack Evans (right, red tie) visited the campus in 2005. Evans, a longtime friend of Wells, was president emeritus of Wells’ and Hairstons’ alma mater, Southwestern Christian College in Texas. Next to Evans is Liberian minister Ofusu Bomeo. At left is Liberian evangelist and Southwestern alum Arthur David.

In addition to his legal and pulpit duties, Hairston was a U.S. Army Reserve chaplain, retiring as full colonel after more than 20 years of service. With the late Roosevelt Wells, minister of the Harlem Church of Christ in New York, Hairston co-founded the Wells-Hairston High School in Monrovia, Liberia. Hairston also served as assistant chairman, then chairman of the board of Southwestern.

Abilene Christian University Bible professor Jerry Taylor, who considers Hairston a mentor, said that Hairston’s “passion for God and his passion for people” were keys to his long success.

“I think he exemplifies a brilliant mind,” Taylor said. “He’s probably one of the best-kept secrets in Churches of Christ, Black and White.”

As news of Hairston’s death spread across the fellowship of Churches of Christ, fellow ministers and ministry directors praised his steadfast devotion and vowed to continue his work.

Andrew Hairston, left, sits on a panel discussing race relations in Churches of Christ at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tenn., in 2012. Next to Hairston is Fred Gray, another minister and attorney who defended Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr., and Doug Foster, church history professor at Abilene Christian University.

“A trailblazer within the Churches of Christ, Hairston courageously confronted racial segregation and marginalization, fostering conversations that paved the way for reconciliation and unity,” said Leonardo D. Gilbert, national director of Crusade for Christ. Founded in 1979, the evangelistic event typically draws hundreds of volunteers and leads to dozens of baptisms in a different U.S. city every two years.

“May we honor brother Andrew J. Hairston’s memory,” Gilbert added, “by continuing the work he began — striving for justice, fostering unity and advancing the mission of Christ’s church.”

ADDITIONAL REPORTING: Bobby Ross Jr., Ted Parks.

Dennis Loyd served as a teacher, professor and administrator for more than five decades at the Nashville, Tenn., university and its neighboring K-12 school, both associated with Churches of Christ. From the time he was a college student, Loyd preached for Churches of Christ across Middle Tennessee. For 23 years he served as an elder of the Granny White Church of Christ, now the Church of Christ in Green Hills.

Dennis Loyd, right, visits with David England, former news bureau director for Lipscomb University, and Jimmy McCollum, communications professor, during a celebration of 100 years of student journalism at Lipscomb in 2023.

From 1996 until earlier this year, he served as associate editor of Gospel Advocate publications.

Visitation is scheduled for noon to 2 p.m. Thursday, May 30, followed by a memorial service at 2 p.m. at the Church of Christ in Green Hills, 3805 Granny White Pike, Nashville, TN 37204.

Loyd taught in the high school at Lipscomb Academy from 1959 to 1968 before he moved to the university, where he served as chair of the English department and as dean of students. Lipscomb students knew Loyd as a strict-yet-compassionate disciplinarian who also had a sincere love for literature and the arts. He coordinated the spring Singarama musicals at Lipscomb and appeared in student productions including “Arsenic and Old Lace” and “The Man Who Came to Dinner.” University officials named Loyd a Lipscomb Legend in 2005 and he received the Mustang Alumni Award from Lipscomb Academy in 2023.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

But this one, Ukrainian Christians said, feels like a triumph.

Anna Ivanova

Anna Ivanova, who survived the Nazi occupation in World War II and nearly seven decades under the Soviet Union, died May 14 in her home in Kramatorsk — about 10 miles from the front lines of Russia’s invasion. She was 100.

She may have been “the oldest Christian in Ukraine,” said Jeff Abrams, minister for the Tuscumbia Church of Christ in Alabama.

Anna Ivanova takes notes during a Bible study in Kramatorsk, Ukraine.

“She refused our many offers to evacuate to a safer area,” said Abrams, who makes multiple trips to the Eastern European nation each year and directs Rescue Ukraine, which provides shelter, heat, food and medical assistance to Christians in Ukraine and refugees spread across Europe and the U.S. 

“She said she survived the Germans and would survive the Russians,” Abrams said of Ivanova, who also told the minister, “my next stop will be heaven.”

Ivanova grew up under Soviet atheism. “Her true love died during World War II,” Abrams said, “and she never married anyone but Jesus.”

She responded to the Gospel message when missionaries from Churches of Christ began working in eastern Ukraine after independence in 1991. Abrams baptized her in her bathtub in 1995.

Anna Ivanova and Jeff Abrams.

“She refused our many offers to evacuate to a safer area. She said she survived the Germans and would survive the Russians (and that her) next stop will be in heaven.”

Kate Gladkykh, a member of the Church of Christ in Kramatorsk, remembered asking Ivanova why she decided to get baptized. 

“She said that once she realized how sin is all about death and God is all about life, there was no doubt in her mind she wanted to be with God,” Gladkykh said.

Anna Ivanova chats with fellow Ukrainian Christians during a fellowship meal in Kramatorsk, Ukraine.

Ivanova was part of the first generation of Churches of Christ in what minister Oleksandr Rodichev called “post-atheist” Ukraine. Christianity was new and missionaries from America were a novelty. Many Ukrainians were baptized.

“But not all of the first ones kept the faith,” Rodichev said. “Many of the first ones passed away a long time ago. Not all showed diligence, and not all grew spiritually as they should.

“‘I’m thankful for those who have been faithful before me because they are why we have Christians in Ukraine now. Anna is an excellent example of a servant who loved the church and was involved in the church’s hospitality.”

“This is the last picture of me and Anna,” said minister Oleksandr Rodichev, left. He visited Ivanova at her home in Kramatorsk after a bomb attack. “Her home was entirely undamaged.”

In Kramatorsk, Ivanova cooked meals for the congregation and maintained dozens of flower arrangements in the church building.

“Every Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday she’d be at the building checking on everything and making sure it was taken care of,” said Gladkykh, who now lives in Alabama and worships with the Tuscumbia church. “Then, when she started getting sick more often, I remember her writing all of the rules of how to take care of our flowers and plants.”

Anna Ivanova celebrates her 100th birthday in January 2024 with the Kramatorsk Church of Christ.

The end result was a “pretty big notebook” of rules, Gladkykh said, and Ivanova decided to give the instructions to a young Christian named Rita. Ivanova “wanted somebody really responsible and involved, so not so many candidates were suited for this position. But Rita was!” 

When the Russian invasion began, many church members fled west to Ukrainian cities farther from the front lines or to the nations of the European Union. Ivanova decided to stay, despite the pounding of artillery shells. 

A block away from her apartment, buildings lie in ruins. 

An apartment building stands in ruins one block away from Anna Ivanova’s home in Kramatorsk, Ukraine.

On Jan. 25, the church members who remain in Kramatorsk celebrated her 100th birthday.

She admired Abrams and Kramatorsk minister Vladimir “Vova” Paziy for “their ability to bring God’s Word to people’s hearts,” Gladkykh said. “I remember one time seeing her getting emotional about one of Jeff’s sermons. To me it was surprising, because Jeff talked about how sinful we all are and how we need to confess our sins to each other and to God. 

“I remember (Ivanova) saying how true that is,” Gladkykh said, “but, honestly, she is the purest person I have ever known!”

Anna Ivanova sits between ministers Vladimir Paziy, left, and Vitaly Rodichev in Kramatorsk, Ukraine.

It’s just one of the famous, or maybe infamous, one-liners for which Monty Daffern was known.

Over nearly 30 years, thousands of students who passed through the Oklahoma State University campus ministry — dubbed “UC@OKState” — at the Stillwater Church of Christ heard Monty share those words.

I was one of them. 

From fall 2000 to spring 2004, I was blessed to be a part of that ministry. Monty was, for many of us, the builder of the bridge that took us from the faith to which we were born into the faith we could claim as our own. 

He taught us how to see God not in the words of our parents but in our own lives. And he taught us the importance of growing that faith wherever we go — to “worship where you are,” as he told us in his “Going Home” sermon at the end of every semester.

It’s hard to know how many lives Monty touched, but now that he’s gone, it’s heartbreaking to think how many will miss out on the chance to learn from, laugh with and be loved by him.

Monty was called to his eternal home on May 13, 2024, at the age of 54. He was born Oct. 31, 1969, to Gary and Jeannie Daffern. He grew up in Hooker, Okla., with his sister, Tonya, and brother, Casey.

Monty had attended Oklahoma State University in the early 1990s. As he wavered in his faith, he found the University Center at the Stillwater church a place to belong and grow. He went on to attend Abilene Christian University, where he received his Master’s in Biblical Studies, before returning to Stillwater in 1994 to serve as campus minister.

In 1995, he married Jenny. Together they had three children, Harrison (who is married to Hannah), Melanie (who goes by Mellie) and Kyeson.

It was in 2013 that Monty’s health took a hard hit. He was diagnosed with Isaac’s Syndrome, a rare autoimmune disorder with less than 200 known cases. But Monty was a fighter and refused to give up. He stayed in ministry and kept touching lives.

Monty Daffern on one of the many mission trips he made to Mexico.

In 2016, after a trip to the Mayo Clinic, a medication combination was worked out enabling him to live a fairly normal life. In August 2022, he got COVID-19, and from there, things gradually began to break down.

In a sermon last fall, Monty — in a wheelchair and struggling with his speech after spending several weeks in the hospital —  talked about Isaac’s Syndrome.

“It’s like Parkinson’s and MS (multiple sclerosis) had a baby,” he quipped.

In January this year, he was hospitalized again. In addition to Isaac’s Syndrome, he was diagnosed with Morvan Syndrome, another rare disorder with only 14 reported cases. He went through several rounds of an experimental treatment. For a while he seemed to be improving, until he wasn’t.

From hospitals to rehabilitation facilities to a nursing home — and then in May came word he had once again entered the Stillwater Medical Center. Doctors had put him in hospice care. His family gathered close.

Within days, the man who had touched so many lives was gone.

Tributes poured out on social media as former students and friends shared the things Monty taught them and the impact he made on their lives.

Those tributes continued at a memorial service this past weekend, where hundreds showed up to grieve together, with others joining online from around the nation.

Greg Summers, a children’s minister for Fellowship Bible Church in Little Rock, Ark., said he often tells students, “I came to saving faith in Jesus at 14, but I got to meet Jesus in my 20s, and I got to meet him through this man named Monty. Because Monty lived with the spirit of God just dwelling inside of him, and every time you interacted with him you got to see a little bit of Jesus.”

Monty Daffern with his wife, Jenny.

Summers served as an intern in the Stillwater campus ministry from fall 2005 to spring 2007. He is one of many campus ministry students who became a minister himself.

Monty believed finding a place to belong was essential to helping students come to believe in the Gospel. That relationship building was a huge part of his ministry. He was a mentor, a friend and a wise teacher. 

“Monty, you were … quirky,” Matt Mills chuckled as he listed things like Dr Pepper, the Green Bay Packers and Elvis. “But you loved what you loved. You loved the Lord. You loved your family. And we’re so glad you loved us. You will be missed dearly.”

Mills, preaching minister for the Perkins Church of Christ, south of Stillwater, is also a former University Center student. He later worked alongside Monty as an associate campus minister.

Matt Mills preaches for the Perkins Church of Christ, south of Stillwater, Okla.

Mills reminded everyone how Monty often quoted Romans and was known for other one-liners, including, “The process is more important than the task — that’s my least favorite one. Don’t start a relationship during finals week. And, if you don’t know what to do, wash feet.”

Washing feet was something Monty led student interns through each year, a group I was fortunate to be a part of.

As one group of interns left, they’d ceremoniously sit with the interns chosen to serve the next year. They’d take buckets of water and rags — washing feet while sharing lessons learned that might help the new interns.

“He embodied what it means for a Christian to wash feet,” said Barry Bachman, who had served alongside Monty for the last several years and now leads the campus ministry. “I can’t tell the times I walked in to find Monty washing dishes, moving chairs, doing the things that maybe nobody wanted to do.”

Many laughed as Monty’s “bromance” with Paul, the writer of Romans, was referenced. Monty loved to teach Romans and frequently offered a study of Romans class to the University Center students for college credit.

Monty Daffern in his office.

While ministering to students was his career, Monty was so much more than just a campus minister.

He was a father, a brother, a son. Jenny and their children have also been instrumental in the ministry. Students have watched his children grow up and admired the marriage he and Jenny had.

He counseled many young couples and officiated countless weddings — ending each couple’s vows with the phrase “until I lay you in the arms of Jesus.”

It’s something his sweet wife has now done, much sooner than she, his children, his family or anyone who knew him would like. 

But we are confident that those arms are exactly where Monty is now — worshiping where he is, as he taught us all to do.

CHELLIE ISON is a freelance journalist and works as a social media and video production manager. She and her family attend the Memorial Road Church of Christ in Oklahoma City.

Memorial donations

Monty Daffern always talked about and hoped to leave behind a new facility for the students at the University Center before he retired. If you would like to make a memorial donation toward the completion of this venture, contribute via this link or mail a check:

UC Foundation Building Campaign

P.O. Box 2168

Stillwater, OK 74076

More photos

Monty Daffern with his family.

In 2023, Monty Daffern was awarded the Stephen Ekstein Lifetime Achievement Award at the Campus for Christ Conference.

Monty Daffern “just being Monty” at the University Center.

It’s the Cedar Springs Church of Christ in Kentucky’s rural Fern Creek community, according to a national directory published by 21st Century Christian.

In actuality, the answer is more complicated.

Yes, the Louisville-area congregation’s roots go back 231 years — to its launch as the Chenoweth Run Baptist Church in 1792.

That founding date is why the directory puts the Kentucky church at the top of its list of the oldest known Churches of Christ in the U.S. But the chart explains, too, that some of these congregations — such as Cedar Springs — started in other religious bodies prior to the Restoration Movement.

The Kentucky group didn’t identify itself as the Cedar Springs Church of Christ until moving into a new building in 1851 — 172 years ago.

“So, most people date us to 1851 because of the Baptist history,” said Zack Martin, the church’s minister since 2016. “So when I came here and started digging into the history, I felt like I was opening up old wounds because nobody ever talked about it.”

Zack Martin, minister for the Cedar Springs Church of Christ, stands in his office.

‘Treasure trove of history’

Nonetheless, understanding the past is helpful in navigating the church’s future, said Martin, a 2007 Bible graduate of Freed-Hardeman University in Henderson, Tenn.

“The Lord is my first love, and history is my second love,” said Martin, who is pursuing a Ph.D. in historical theology from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Mo.

“It’s a treasure trove of history,” he said of the Cedar Springs church. “Like, we go all the way back to 1792, and there’s even a connection to Daniel Boone.” 

A cousin of Boone, the famous American frontiersman and folk hero, gave the land for the original Chenoweth Run Baptist Church, Martin notes.

Martin summarizes the history of the church, located about 15 miles southeast of downtown Louisville, this way:

The congregation began its theological shift in the 1820s after the hiring of a preacher named Zacheus Carpenter, who identified with the teachings of Alexander Campbell, a key figure in the Restoration Movement. As a result of Carpenter’s influence, the church split, and those left behind practiced simple New Testament Christianity.

Zack Martin holds an archived gospel meeting invitation from decades ago.

For a few decades, that group kept worshiping under the Baptist name. But in 1851, members relocated and built a new building. At that time, they became the Cedar Springs Church of Christ.

The church moved to its current site in 1919 on farmland donated by an elder, Roscoe Stout.

“By that time, people had automobiles, so they thought: Why not move up to the main road?” Martin said. “So the story goes that they put the building on logs, and a team of mules moved the building.”

The existing building was erected at the same site in 1958. A fellowship hall was added in the mid-1980s.

Restoration roots

Cedar Springs’ complex history mirrors that of many congregations associated with the Restoration Movement, sometimes called the Stone-Campbell Movement in recognition of key reformers Barton W. Stone and Campbell.

“While we can use the phrase ‘Stone-Campbell Movement’ as a useful shorthand, the goals of restoring New Testament Christianity preceded those two men and were not limited to them, even in their day,” Restoration Movement scholar John Young said in an email.

The next-oldest congregations listed by the 21st Century Christian directory are the Parksville Christian Church in Kentucky (established in 1796); the Church of Christ of Philadelphia, Pa. (circa 1800); the Pleasant Ridge Church of Christ in Tennessee (circa 1800); the Rock Springs Church of Christ in Celina, Tenn. (1805); and the Rocky Springs Church of Christ in Bridgeport, Ala. (1807).

Related: 21st Century Christian’s full data sheet on the oldest Churches of Christ

“Many individual Christians — and occasionally even entire congregations — felt a need to move away from various practices, beliefs and institutions in pursuit of those aims,” said Young, a theology professor at Amridge University in Montgomery, Ala. 

“Sometimes, that resulted from the preaching and teaching of believers who were already part of ‘our’ movement,” he added, “but in other instances, it was the result of their direct, profound encounter with the Word.”

Church member Nannette Dawson sorts and organizes historical documents from the congregation’s archives.

Film photos on a table at the Cedar Springs Church of Christ await filing.

A daughter’s legacy

Here in Louisville, church member Nannette Dawson, whose husband, Will, grew up in the Cedar Springs church, is helping Martin research the congregation’s history. 

The Fern Creek community where the church is located was an unincorporated area until the city of Louisville annexed it in 2003.

The church basement is filled with thousands of old bulletins, ledgers and photos that help piece together that history.

Dawson said she wants her 16-year-old daughter, Jasmine, whose grandfather and great-grandfather both served as Cedar Springs elders, to understand her roots.

“My daughter’s got a legacy here, and she doesn’t know that,” Dawson said. “Kids need that foundation.”

The mother recalled that the congregation lost a lot of members during the COVID-19 pandemic — some from the virus itself, others from old age.

“My daughter’s got a legacy here, and she doesn’t know that. Kids need that foundation.”

Those deaths reinforced the need to preserve the church’s collective memory, Dawson said.

On a similar note, Martin shared how the historic documents benefited him during the pandemic.

He was able to check the ledgers and learn that the church closed for a full month during the global influenza epidemic of 1918.

“They simply wrote (on the ledger), ‘No meeting on account of flu,’” he said. 

The lesson for Martin while the church grappled with COVID-19: “We’ve been here before. They shut down and still survived. We’re still here because of their strength and their faith and their legacy. So we need to pass that down to the next generation and let them know where they come from.”

An old directory is among the historical documents kept by the Cedar Springs church.

From the 1950s to the 1980s, Cedar Springs’ attendance ran about 200 on Sundays.

Post-COVID, that number averages 50 or so.

But Martin points out that families were larger in the congregation’s numerical heyday.

“In the ’50s and ’60s, there were a lot of young families who averaged about four kids apiece,” he said. “So that really bulked up the numbers through those decades.”

BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. Reach him at bobby@christianchronicle.org.

It has a bright future, too, lifelong member Carolyn Ragland Poston believes.

“This congregation probably has 20 babies under 6 years old,” Poston, 74, said at the rural church’s two-day bicentennial celebration. “I mean, I’m telling you, we are busting loose with babies.”

A car speeds past a traffic sign warning of the parking lot entrance for the Bethlehem church. The Tennessee congregation is one of the nation’s oldest Churches of Christ.

The 80-member congregation worships God in a red-brick building about 35 miles east of Nashville. A yellow sign along the two-lane blacktop — just a few miles off Interstate 40 — warns motorists to slow down in the church zone.

Fires and floods forced the Middle Tennessee church to rebuild multiple times — and relocate in a few cases — before erecting its long-standing meeting place in 1941.

As Poston greeted guests in the fellowship hall, old photos, letters and documents surrounded her. Two centuries of mementos recounted past and present ministers, elders, deacons, song leaders, mission efforts and children’s programs.

“I’m in there,” she said, pointing at a black-and-white Vacation Bible School picture from 1960, “but I was like 11 years old at the time.

“Have y’all seen this Bible?” she added, turning to a different part of the exhibit. “This was actually my grandmother’s, and her daddy gave it to her. Hang on, and let me show you the inscription.”

Poston’s links to the congregation extend through two sides of her family, including four generations of Raglands and five generations of Neals. 

Two other multigenerational families still active in the church — the Bobos and the Harlans — also trace their lineage to the flock’s early days.

Carolyn Ragland Poston and her husband, Terry, admire the church’s history exhibit.

Poston helped gather recipes for a 150-page cookbook produced for the recent 200th anniversary celebration. 

It features handwritten recipes such as Maggie Lou Whitefield Kirkpatrick’s angel biscuits, Virginia Powell Waters’ chicken dressing casserole and Leigh Nora Miller’s peanut butter Rice Krispie bars.

Poston views the cookbook as a way to preserve the memory of beloved fellow Christians.

“We’ve got members now that don’t have a clue who any of these people are,” she said, “and I want them to know how important they were in structuring us as children.”

Members and visitors mark the 200th anniversary of the Bethlehem Church of Christ.

Restoration pioneer

The Bethlehem church’s history stretches all the way back to frontier preacher Barton W. Stone. 

It’s one of only 24 Churches of Christ nationwide — out of roughly 12,000 total — that have met continuously for at least 200 years, according to a national directory published by 21st Century Christian. Some of the others have roots in other religious bodies dating prior to the Restoration Movement. 

In the early 1800s, Stone — who believed the Bible, not human creeds, should be the basis of Christian practices — traveled through this Wilson County community.

Members pose in front of the Bethlehem Church of Christ in 1980.

One of the key figures of the Restoration Movement, Stone stayed at the home of John and Sarah Sweatt Scoby. 

Before retiring for the night, the minister suggested reading Scripture and praying with the couple. He ended up studying New Testament doctrines with the Scobys and their friends and neighbors for several days.

Related: 21st Century Christian’s full data sheet on the oldest Churches of Christ

Christian families in the area met sporadically from house to house until they organized as the Bethlehem Church of Christ in 1823, according to a historical marker dedicated by the congregation and community dignitaries. 

“I have no idea how the Bethlehem Church of Christ got its name,” said elder Charles Poston, who is a cousin of Carolyn Poston’s husband, Terry. “There are several churches in Wilson County named after places mentioned in the New Testament, such as Bethany, Rome, Philadelphia and Bethel.”

Of course, Bethlehem in the hill country of Judea was the birthplace of Jesus.

While located in the unincorporated community of Tuckers Crossroads, Tennessee’s Bethlehem church has a Lebanon address. The Wilson County seat, established in 1802 on an overland stagecoach route, was named for the biblical Lebanon.

At its 200th anniversary, the Bethlehem church remains committed to its original convictions — among them baptism by immersion at the age of accountability, singing without instrumental accompaniment and partaking of the Lord’s Supper each Sunday.

“We are simply called Christians and practice simple New Testament worship,” the church’s website declares. “We love one another and are dedicated to show the love of God to all. It is our prayer that you would come and join us on our journey.”

Aaron Johnson walks across the church parking lot in the rain.

For the congregation’s bicentennial, church members gathered under a large white tent on the church lawn. On a rainy, 72-degree Saturday afternoon, they listened to special presentations on the congregation’s history and applauded 200th anniversary proclamations issued by county and state officials.

Area minister Mark Adams spoke on the significance of the Restoration Movement — sometimes called the Stone-Campbell Movement in recognition of Stone and Alexander Campbell, another prominent minister and reformer.

“It was their conviction that the existence of so many church options, all claiming to study the same Scriptures and follow the same Lord … was ultimately harmful to our witness to the world and went against the will of Christ.”

Adams, an amateur church historian and pulpit minister for the Tusculum Church of Christ in Nashville, characterized the Restoration Movement as “an attempt to unify Christians from all denominations.”

“It was their conviction that the existence of so many church options, all claiming to study the same Scriptures and follow the same Lord … was ultimately harmful to our witness to the world and went against the will of Christ,” said Adams, who earned a Master of Divinity degree from Harding School of Theology in Memphis, Tenn., and a doctorate in ministry from Lipscomb University in Nashville. 

“In John 17, when Jesus prayed for all future Christians … his will for the church was that we would be one,” the preacher told Bethlehem members. “So, many people came together in an attempt to unify Christians, and this effort has now a very global footprint that we’re all still participating in today.”

Another speaker, Jane Elam Hundley, 79, reflected on her late grandfather E.A. Elam, a former president of Lipscomb and editor of the Gospel Advocate. Hundley displayed a suit that Elam wore when he preached at Bethlehem a century ago.

“I want to say how wonderful it is today to celebrate 200 years with this church,” said Hundley, who attended the congregation regularly as a first grader. “It is such a gift that we all bring here to celebrate.”

Jane Elam Hundley speaks at the 200th anniversary celebration. A suit worn by her late grandfather a century hangs behind her.

Surviving and thriving

Pal Neal, 65, is one of the Bethlehem church’s three elders and has attended the congregation all his life. His father and great-grandfather also served as elders.

“So many churches out in the rural areas like this didn’t survive the last 50 years,” Neal said. “We’ve been able to maybe not grow that much but, you know, to keep everything going. We’ve got a lot of young people now, so we’ve been blessed for sure. The Lord has given us everything we need.”

Neal has fond memories of former longtime preacher Kenneth Head training the church’s children to serve the Lord. Head, who returned for the 200th anniversary festivities, served the congregation for more than 50 years starting in 1966.

“I remember the young people’s class that he had,” Neal said. “He’d bring everybody down front on Sunday night at 5:30 before the 6 p.m. service and teach us memory verses and play games with us. He just related to the young people and kind of kept everybody interested, which is part of the reason we’re still here today.”

Neal and his wife, Sheila, have three children and six young grandchildren. 

Neal thanks God that all are a part of the Bethlehem congregation.

“You see so many of these congregations, and it’s just a bunch of old people, and they start dying off.”

“You see so many of these congregations, and it’s just a bunch of old people, and they start dying off,” the church elder said. 

“I don’t know why,” he said of Bethlehem defying that trend. “I guess it’s the luck of the draw. And then we’ve had some good programs for the youth down through the years.”

The Neal family alone takes up two full pews on Sunday mornings.

“It’s a really close-knit community,” said Sheila Neal, interviewed while cuddling one of her grandchildren. “Everybody just cares for each other. If someone needs them, they’re not lost here.”

Heidi Neal plays with her grandmother Sheila Neil’s necklace during Sunday worship.

Focusing on Jesus

Tyler Alverson, the 26-year-old son of Bethlehem elder Travis Alverson, is now a preacher in Kentucky.

He serves the Seven Oaks Church of Christ in Mayfield.

But many of Alverson’s formative faith experiences occurred at the Bethlehem church — be it playing football with fellow teens outside the building or attending youth rallies inside its walls.

He worshiped with the congregation from age 4 until he left to attend Freed-Hardeman University in Henderson, Tenn. 

He was baptized at Bethlehem, preached one of his first sermons in its auditorium and got engaged to his wife, Leslie, on the church’s front steps.

“We got married here, too,” he said.

Church leaders invited Tyler Alverson to fill in for pulpit minister Donnie Rhoten and deliver the Sunday morning sermon at the 200th anniversary celebration.

Tyler Alverson, who grew up in the Bethlehem church, preaches at the 200th anniversary service.

A crowd of 152 people — nearly double the normal attendance — squeezed into the pews and extra folding chairs brought in for the occasion. Afterward, they enjoyed a catered meal under the tent.

Past and present members shared hugs, handshakes and memories. They sang familiar hymns such as “Give Me the Bible,” “Jesus, Hold My Hand” and “Nothing But the Blood of Jesus.”

The guest preacher titled his lesson “Who is Jesus?” and took his text from Colossians 1:13-20.

“It’s amazing to see a group of Christians when they come together … for a common purpose to glorify God and further the cause of the Gospel.”

“As I’m sure is true for you, this congregation holds a special place in my heart, and it always will,” Alverson told the congregation. “So I’m thankful to be here today, thankful for all the work that has gone into this celebration. It’s amazing to see a group of Christians when they come together … for a common purpose to glorify God and further the cause of the Gospel.”

While extolling the congregation’s long history, Alverson urged against putting too much emphasis on the “Bethlehem” in its name and not enough on the “Church of Christ.”

“If we leave here today with a greater knowledge of this congregation, but we don’t leave with a greater knowledge of our Lord Jesus … do you think we’ve placed our emphasis on the wrong part of that description?” he asked.

The purpose of the church, Alverson stressed, is to love and serve Jesus.

“We want to grow in our knowledge of Jesus,” he said. “We want to fall deeper in love with Jesus. We want to form relationships with Jesus. We want to follow in Jesus’ footsteps (and be) more faithful and more devoted on a daily basis.”

BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. Reach him at bobby@christianchronicle.org.

More photos

Pulpit minister Donnie Rhoten unveils a historical marker for the Bethlehem Church of Christ in Tuckers Crossroads, Tenn., about 35 miles east of Nashville. The rural congregation recently celebrated its 200th anniversary.

The crowd stands to sing during the Sunday morning assembly at the Bethlehem church.

Old photos are displayed in the Bethlehem church’s fellowship hall during the 200th anniversary celebration.

A girl attends the Sunday morning service of the Bethlehem church.

A woman opens the front door of the Bethlehem church after the Sunday morning assembly.

Friends and theologians shared memories and tributes to a man known for his warm voice and intense, genuine interest in each person with whom he came in contact.

Landon Saunders

Mike Cope, director of ministry outreach at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., reflected on 40 years of friendship with Saunders that included holidays shared with Cope’s family and summer hikes on the Appalachian Trail.

“What seems unmatched in Landon’s life is that his authenticity was the same in every setting,” Cope recalled. “He could lift a crowd of thousands with words that would age well. Every sermon he preached from the ’60s could be on YouTube today. He focused on the Gospel and the meaning of putting Jesus in the center of everything.” 

Saunders was born July 26, 1937, in Charleston, W.Va., and grew up in Appalachian poverty in Teays Valley. He graduated from Freed-Hardeman and Harding universities and later attended Harding School of Theology. He received Harding’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 1981 and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Abilene Christian University in 2023.

In the wake of his passing, professors and theologians from the breadth of Churches of Christ and beyond were among those who paid tribute to Saunders’ impact over seven decades.

Milton Sewell, Freed-Hardeman chancellor, recalled first hearing Saunders as a “young effective preacher” in the 1950s when he was a student at FHU. 

“He has been back on campus, and we have visited since and observed the dynamic way he has impacted the Kingdom,” Sewell said. “He will be missed by many Christians whom he helped to bring to Christ.”

David Wray, past Summit director and professor emeritus at Abilene Christian University in Texas, first knew Saunders during his own graduate school days.

“How do you describe the kind of things he did across the nation and the world — addressing culture in a way churches were not able to?” Wray said. “In a day when we’re talking about divisions in culture — he was able to cut through all of that and center on things that mattered. Very few people have been able to do that.”

“How do you describe the kind of things he did across the nation and the world — addressing culture in a way churches were not able to? In a day when we’re talking about divisions in culture — he was able to cut through all of that and center on things that mattered. Very few people have been able to do that.”

Ross Cochran, professor of practical theology at Harding University in Searcy, Ark., said “a person like Landon comes along once a century.” 

“Through ‘Heartbeat’ he focused on speaking good news to people he assumed would never enter a church building and did so using language they would understand and receive,” Cochran said. “He embodied really well the joy that he wanted others to experience. I’ve heard him say joy is not an end we pursue — it’s an energy we apply.  He did that in every conversation, every interaction.”

Beginning in 1971, Saunders was the voice of “Heartbeat,” the first evangelistic radio program ever accepted for broadcast as a commercial message by NBC. Created in connection with Herald of Truth Ministries, the program became Heartbeat Inc. and was expanded to include events worldwide.  

Landon Saunders in his rocking chair at his Vermont home.

Saunders was recruited to begin the ministry by Herald of Truth president Clois Fowler. “Heartbeat” was designed as a different type of program than the more traditional Herald of Truth broadcasts.

The TV program of the 1970s featured luminaries from Churches of Christ like Batsell Barrett Baxter, Harold Hazelip and Joe Barnett, all well-known ministers from Tennessee and Texas. 

Barnett, now in his 90s, is the only one still living. He also pointed to Saunders’ authenticity as key to his effectiveness.

“One of the main reasons his messages resonated with everyone was that they sensed that he was authentic. There was no deception,” Barnett said. “Everyone sensed that he was credible. You sensed that what he said was what he lived. He not only spoke the message, he lived the message.”

That credibility extended beyond the broadcasts, Barnett said. “It was also true in his dealings within our fellowship. Some disagreed with his methods, but no one could find his person disagreeable.’”

“Heartbeat” was not Saunders’ first foray into media. For nine years he produced a 15-minute program for a station in Corning, Ark., the small northeast Arkansas community where he preached and also taught sixth grade for a year. From there he embarked on 15 months of international travel encompassing 60 nations, a trek he described as evangelistic but also as an opportunity “to observe churches at work in the world and to search for universals of the Gospel.”

He was on that journey, in India, when Fowler contacted him and persuaded him to come to Abilene and begin the program that became “Heartbeat.” Its first broadcast launched Jan. 3, 1972, after a year of research and planning. In 1975, the program was accepted by NBC radio, and in 1979, CBS radio donated free public service time for it to be aired nationwide.

Don Williams, longtime Heartbeat Inc. board chair, described Saunders’ message as focused on “how to have joy and human flourishing at the center of your life because that is the very nature of God.”

Landon Saunders at home in his living room.

Williams said Saunders “was a Christian humanist, meaning people were first, not the message first.”

“That’s pretty rare in theological circles, especially in our fellowship.” Williams added. “It was always about helping people. … He was always about people, never about money or growth or the size of ‘Heartbeat,’ but always how he could be useful.” 

Prior to launching “Heartbeat,” Saunders preached at Churches of Christ in Tennessee, Arkansas and Texas. In the 1970s, he preached in Abilene, Texas, at the Minter Lane Church of Christ and spoke frequently at the Highland Church of Christ, where his Wednesday night college class drew more than 1,000 students weekly.

Most recently, he was a member of the Brookline Church of Christ in Massachusetts. 

Brookline member Bob Randolph, chaplain emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said Saunders was, at heart, “an evangelist to those who seldom found their way into a church building. His ministry through ‘Heartbeat’ — on the radio and through gatherings across the nation — opened eyes and hearts that needed to see and hear a grace filled message.”

Randolph said Saunders “changed lives by having the courage to proclaim a simple truth: You are loved by God.”

Saunders lived in the Northeast for the last decades of his life, making his home in Vermont where he walked the property and reveled in its beauty. He was a fellow of the Caris Life Sciences Foundation and served on the board of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture.

Miroslav Volf, director of the Yale center and Henry B. Wright professor of theology, called Saunders “a man of insuppressible hope and joy” and an invaluable member of the center’s community.

Robert Rhodes, ACU provost (left) and president Phil Schubert surprised Landon Saunders with an honorary doctorate during the annual Friends of the ACU Library event where the university announced creation of the Landon Saunders Center for Joy and Human Flourishing.

“He shared with us a deep conviction that modern cultures suffer from the neglect in study of and striving for deeply flourishing life and that a compelling vision of flourishing is embodied in the person of Jesus Christ,” Volf said. 

In 2023, Abilene Christian established the Landon Saunders Center for Joy and Human Flourishing, an academic center described as dedicated to “preserving his legacy and forwarding his vision to develop generations who will learn how best to live as human beings.”

In one of the final things he wrote — a column for ACU Today magazine — Saunders described his joy at the creation of a center that would enrich students. He recounted his time in that 1,000-plus Wednesday night Bible class as “one of the great joys of my life. Their bold and questing spirits thrilled me. Conversations with them greatly influenced me and the work I was creating.”

He characterized the connection between joy and human flourishing that had guided his life’s work:

“Joy is love’s great ally! Joy holds no condemnation, judgment or fragility. Joy provides the atmosphere in which love grows, stays healthy and endures. Joy surrounds love, paves the way to love, evens out the bumps along the way of love. Joy steps in when love is strained; it keeps us balanced when anticipated love comes up short. In the presence of that joy, love is at its best.

“Joy is love’s great ally! Joy holds no condemnation, judgment or fragility. Joy provides the atmosphere in which love grows, stays healthy and endures. Joy surrounds love, paves the way to love, evens out the bumps along the way of love. Joy steps in when love is strained; it keeps us balanced when anticipated love comes up short. In the presence of that joy, love is at its best.

“I have made joy the default setting of my heart. No matter what happens, no matter my failure, no matter my loss, no matter my sadness, no matter the disease that now weakens my body, my heart returns to joy. Joy has room for all our disappointments, grief, tragedies, depression and fears.”

A memorial service for Saunders is being planned for 2 p.m. Jan 13 at the Light of the World Church of Christ in Dallas. Those wishing to honor Saunders’ memory may do so with a gift to Heartbeat, P.O. Box 64895, Lubbock, TX 79464, or the Saunders Center at acu.edu/give, adding a note that the gift is for the Saunders Center.

They prayed and took the unleavened bread representing Jesus’ body, then the fruit of the vine symbolizing the Savior’s blood — a practice they’d witnessed their parents follow countless times. 

Jane, 87, had passed away 17 days earlier. They knew their father was close behind. 

@christianchronicle SEARCY, Ark. — Hundreds of former missionaries and students of Howard and Jane Norton gather to celebrate the couple’s life of ministry. Howard, 88 and Jane, 87, passed away 17 days apart in October 2023. They were married for 67 years. #howardnorton #janenorton #hardinguniversity #searcyarkansas #collegechurchofchrist #brazilmission ♬ original sound – The Christian Chronicle

As they shared the Lord’s Supper in remembrance of Christ’s sacrifice, “our father went home to be with God,” Tom Norton told The Christian Chronicle, the publication Howard Norton once served as editor. “Happy he’s with Mom and surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses as he is united with God.”

Jane and Howard Norton in 2016

Howard, 88, died Oct. 22 after a long battle with cancer and other ailments.  

“Outside of my family, he positively changed my life more than anyone else,” said David Duncan, minister for the Memorial Church of Christ in Houston. When Duncan was 12, his father died, and at 17 he enrolled at Oklahoma Christian University.

As his Bible professor, Norton became “the biggest male influence in my life,” said Duncan, who followed in Norton’s footsteps as a missionary to Brazil.  

“He would sit with me and other students outside of class for hours and talk about spiritual matters and church work,” Duncan said. “He helped us believe we could do more for the Lord than we had imagined.”

Dogs, guns and gospel

The couple met on the campus of Abilene Christian University in West Texas. They sold Bibles door to door as they trained to serve as missionaries.

“We got used to dogs and guns,” Howard Norton said with a chuckle as he reminisced with his wife in 2021. Jane chimed in, “You might say, ‘Not easily discouraged.’”

Budo Perry, an engineer who did mission work in Brazil in the late 1960s, prays during a time of fellowship among family and friends of the São Paulo team during the team’s 60-year reunion in 2021. At right is Howard Norton.

The couple spoke to the Chronicle during the 60th anniversary of the São Paulo mission. The Nortons were part of a team of 26 adults and 18 children who journeyed to the Brazilian metropolis in 1961.

“We brought the church with us,” Howard Norton said. When team members disagreed, “we’d go to the mat for our ideas, but then, after the fight, we’d go get coffee or we’d have lunch together, or maybe we’d go to each other and apologize. I think the Brazilians saw that — that we respected each other, but that we also made mistakes and knew how to resolve those mistakes.”

Lynn and Phyllis Huff and other surviving members of the 1961 Brazil mission team sing along with an a cappella recording of “It is Well With My Soul” before the memorial service for Howard and Jane Norton.

About 350 Igrejas de Cristo (“Churches of Christ” in Portuguese) came into existence due in large part to the team’s efforts, said Michelle Mickey, the daughter of one of the missionary families.

The team’s work inspired the creation of Great Cities Missions, a nonprofit that prepares teams to teach, preach and plant churches throughout Latin America. 

The São Paulo team also influenced future missionaries, including Bob Eckman, who serves a Church of Christ in Nottingham, England.

“I was at the dockside in the Port of Houston when the Nortons sailed for Brazil,” Eckman said. “It had a profound impact on my life, but I never dreamed then that I would spend more than 57 years on the mission field.”

Family and friends of the Nortons listen to stories about the couple’s years in Brazil during the memorial service.

Teaching and Chronicling  

The Nortons served in South America for 16 years, returning to the U.S. in 1977 to work for Oklahoma Christian University in Oklahoma City. Jane taught Portuguese, and Howard was a professor of Bible and missions. From 1992 to 1996 he served as chair of OC’s College of Biblical Studies. He also served as pulpit minister for the College Church of Christ, now the Memorial Road Church of Christ.

In the late 1970s, John and Dottie Beckloff, missionaries to Nigeria, took oversight of the Chronicle. Despite their efforts to keep the paper alive, a lack of subscribers and funds forced the couple to cease publication in 1980. 

The front page of the October 1993 issue of The Christian Chronicle.

Howard Norton and his cousin and former Brazil teammate, Don Vinzant, made plans to buy the newspaper and keep it going, only to learn that the Beckloffs had given the publication to Oklahoma Christian. Terry Johnson, the university’s then-president, tapped Norton to serve as editor.

The paper resumed publication in 1981. In his first editorial, Norton called for Churches of Christ to “awaken again to its responsibility and assume its divine role as the body of Christ.

“The church is not a political party, a civic club nor a country club. It is to be the body of Jesus.”

“The church is not a political party, a civic club nor a country club,” he wrote. “It is to be the body of Jesus.”

Norton served as editor until 1996. A year later, he and Jane moved to Searcy. Howard served on the Bible faculty at Harding University and directed the annual lectureship. He edited Church and Family magazine.

One more mountain in Honduras

In 2008, Howard Norton preached a sermon at the College Church of Christ in Searcy, Ark., titled “Give Me This Mountain,” inspired by the teachings of minister Reuel Lemmons.

“Even as I preached, I was thinking to myself, ‘I really would like to have another mountain,’” Norton told the Chronicle the next year in the Central American capital of Tegucigalpa, Honduras. In 2009, Norton accepted the offer to serve as president of Baxter Institute, a school that prepares preachers and their wives for ministry in Iglesias de Cristo (“Churches of Christ” in Spanish) across Latin America. He and Jane served in Honduras through 2012.

Christians worship during a Sunday service on the campus of Baxter Institute in Honduras during Howard Norton’s tenure as president of the ministry training school.

Among the Baxter students the Nortons influenced is Yariel Olivera, a preacher in Cuba. “He told us many stories, jokes, songs,” Olivera said of Howard, who also taught that Jesus can “unite his children — no matter what country, race or political system we come from.”

Preaching and living the word

As tributes for the Nortons poured in from around the globe, their children, who shared communion at their parents’ kitchen table, reflected on the couple’s legacy.

Ted Norton, right, and his family sing “Great is Thy Faithfulness” during the memorial service for Howard and Jane Norton.

“Dad was the front man … groomed his entire childhood to ‘preach the Word,’” said Ted Norton. “Mom loved Dad and supported her front man in everything.” 

As they reminisced about Jane’s life, “Dad told us … that there were two times in his life that Mom ‘carried’ him,” Ted Norton said. “He told us the first time and then lost the thought on the second. The three of us suggested several possibilities … and Dad said, ‘Well, she did then also’ for each of them. She carried him many times so that he could continue preaching the Word.”

Laurie Diles spends time with her father in his final days.

Laurie Diles, the Nortons’ daughter, said that Howard “was a lot of things to a lot of people, but he was my Daddy. … He thought I could do literally anything.”

Diles and her husband, Allen, served for 11 years as missionaries in the Czech Republic. She earned a doctorate and teaches in Harding’s communication department.

She and Howard “spent many, many hours together these past six months as he recovered from a ruptured aneurysm, learned to live life at a different pace, joined me for visits with Mom at rehab,” Diles said. “I am so happy for him that the days of weakness are behind him forever. 

“His constant advice was that the most important thing is to be faithful in Jesus. He was faithful.”

Most importantly, a lifelong follower of Christ.

Jane and Howard Norton in 2016

Howard Norton, who served multiple roles on multiple continents for Churches of Christ and their associated universities during his 88 years on earth, died Sunday morning, Oct. 22.

His sons, Tom and Ted, and his daughter, Laurie Diles, had gathered in Searcy, Ark., to say farewell to their father.

“A few minutes ago, while Laurie, Ted and I with my wife were having communion at my parents’ breakfast table, our father went home to be with God,” Tom Norton said in a message to The Christian Chronicle, the publication where Howard Norton once served as editor. “Happy he’s with Mom and surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses as he is united with God.”

Jane Norton, Howard’s wife of 67 years, died a little more than two weeks earlier on Oct. 5. She was 87.

A joint memorial service is scheduled for Friday, Oct. 27, at the College Church of Christ in Searcy. Visitation is at 1 p.m. and the service begins at 2 p.m. 

The couple met on the campus of Abilene Christian University in Texas. They sold Bibles door-to-door as they trained to serve as missionaries.

“We got used to dogs and guns,” Howard Norton said with a chuckle as he reminisced with fellow members of the Sao Paulo mission team during the group’s 60th reunion in 2021. The Nortons were part of a team of 26 adults and 18 children who sailed to the Brazilian metropolis in 1961 to spread the Gospel and plant churches.

“We moved in with a team. We brought the church with us,” Howard Norton said. When team members disagreed, “we’d go to the mat for our ideas, but then, after the fight, we’d go get coffee or we’d have lunch together, or maybe we’d go to each other and apologize. I think the Brazilians saw that — that we respected each other, but that we also made mistakes and knew how to resolve those mistakes.”

The Nortons in Brazil during the 1960s.

About 350 Igrejas de Cristo (“Churches of Christ” in Portuguese) came into existence due in large part to the team’s efforts, said Michelle Mickey, the daughter of one of the mission families, during the reunion.

The Nortons served in the South American nation for 16 years, returning to the U.S. in 1977 to teach at Oklahoma Christian University. Jane taught Portuguese and Howard was a professor of Bible and missions. From 1992 to 1996 he served as chair of OC’s College of Biblical Studies. During his time in Oklahoma he served as pulpit minister for the College Church of Christ in Oklahoma City, later renamed Memorial Road Church of Christ.

Howard Norton (front row, near center) was a guest speaker during the 50th anniversary celebration of the Memorial Road Church of Christ in 2013.

In the late 1970s John and Dottie Beckloff, missionaries to Nigeria, served as publisher of The Christian Chronicle. Hurting for subscribers and funds, the Chronicle ceased publication in 1980. Howard Norton and his cousin and former Brazil teammate, Don Vinzant, began making plans to buy the newspaper and keep it going, only to learn that the Beckloffs had given the publication to Oklahoma Christian. Terry Johnson, the university’s then-president, tapped Norton to serve as editor.

The paper resumed publication in 1981. In his first editorial, Norton called for Churches of Christ to “awaken again to its responsibility and assume its divine role as the body of Christ.

“The church is not a political party, a civic club nor a country club,” he wrote. “It is to be the body of Jesus.”

Norton served as editor until 1997, when he and Jane moved to Searcy. Howard served as Bible faculty at Harding University and directed the annual lectureship. He edited Church and Family magazine.

In 2008, Norton preached a sermon at the College Church of Christ in Searcy, Ark., titled “Give me this mountain,” inspired by the teachings of renowned minister Reuel Lemmons.

Howard Norton speaks to an attendee at the Baxter Institute’s annual seminar in Tegucigalpa in 2011.

“Even as I preached, I was thinking to myself, ‘I really would like to have another mountain,’” Norton told the Chronicle the next year in the Central American capital of Tegucigalpa, Honduras. In 2009, Norton accepted the offer to serve as president of Baxter Institute, a school that prepares preachers and their wives for ministry in Iglesias de Cristo (“Churches of Christ” in Spanish) across Latin America. He and Jane served in Honduras through 2012.

In recent years Howard and Jane Norton battled cancer and other ailments. Staffers from the Chronicle visited Howard on Sept. 12 at a rehab facility in Sherwood, Ark. In vivid detail, Howard recalled his days with the newspaper, which had fewer than 4,000 subscribers when he began his tenure as editor.

Howard Norton

He praised his coworkers, including Bailey McBride, Sue Johnson and Lindy Adams, who wrote stories and designed the newly revived Chronicle in the 1980s. The publication currently has about 132,000 subscribers.

“If I had been able to print one more copy, I would have had exactly 15 years with the Chronicle,” Howard Norton said. “I really love the Chronicle. … It was great fun.”

This is a developing story. Check back for memorial service details and additional information.

And I can see Ruth Wyrick.

Related: Listen to our related podcast (starting at 11:40 mark)

She’d be strategically seated at a fold-out table near the auditorium, which ensured that you saw her and she saw you. Ruth would then proceed to educate us about which candidate she supported and the importance of voting.

Well before the noise of the internet and myriad of political commentators, Ruth introduced generations to the true definition of servitude in the church and her community.

Ruth Wyrick

Dr. Ruth Laverne Wells Wyrick went home to be with the Lord on April 14, 2023, at 88.

After graduating from Southwestern Christian College in Terrell, Texas, Ruth relocated to Dallas, where she met and married fellow alum Ernest “Deacon” Wyrick. They were married for 59 years before his transition in 2020. They had two children, Narleski and Natesha (Shay) and were the proud grandparents to five grandsons and one great-grandson.

Ruth and Deacon were faithful members of Marsalis Avenue Church of Christ in Dallas, and Ruth supported her husband in his work as a deacon, elder and focus leader.

Ruth’s daughter, Shay, said, “She took her role as a godly wife very seriously. Her only brother (Dr. R.C. Wells) was a preacher, and he began preaching as a preteen. She knew the Bible backward and forward and loved the fellowship of the saints.”

Ruth was the chief fundraiser for Southwestern, having raised approximately $1.5 million for the college in the last 25 years. In 2012 she was awarded a doctorate of humane letters for her service.

Ruth was actively involved in the community as well as local and state politics. She worked on many historical local campaigns and helped to elevate the political activity of members of the church.

Shay added, “If candidates could get Ruth Wyrick’s endorsement, they likely got the Dallas Black Churches of Christ.”

She served as a Democratic precinct chair for 50 years and a Dallas County election judge for every municipal, state and partisan election in South Oak Cliff through 2021.

When asked what political cause she would consider the most important to Ruth, Shay responded, “Representation of the people mattered. She worked with redistricting committees on all levels to make sure our community had our representation of choice. Once the maps were drawn to give our community our own voice, she worked to elect the person who would speak for us.”

Ruth was proud to be appointed to the City of Dallas Martin Luther King Jr. Board by councilman Al Lipscomb and was appointed as chair of the MLK Board by Ron Kirk, the first Black mayor of Dallas.

I asked Shay how she would like her mother to be remembered.

“For her love of family, the church and Southwestern,” she said. “And for her voting influence.”

TANEISE PERRY is a member of The Christian Chronicle’s board of trustees. She worships with the Kingdom Church of Christ in Charlotte, N.C. She is owner of The Church Pew, an online faith apparel store.

DeMeco Ryans is back with the Texans after playing as the NFL team’s middle linebacker from 2006 to 2011. It was during that time he first placed membership with the Fifth Ward Church of Christ, which had its beginnings amid the 1930s tent revivals of the notable Black evangelist Marshall Keeble.

Gary Smith, minister of the Fifth Ward Church of Christ in Houston, and his wife, Karen

At first, the church members didn’t realize who he was, said Fifth Ward minister Gary Smith.

“One of our members came to me one day, he said, ‘You know DeMeco Ryans, a rookie that plays with the Texans, he’s attending here?’” Smith recalled. “So he introduced me to him the next week, and he’s so humble, you know, and of course he didn’t want any fanfare about it.”

It stuck out to him that Ryans would come to worship on Sunday evening even after playing a big NFL game that day.

Ryans later played for the Philadelphia Eagles and served as an assistant coach for the San Fransisco 49ers. The Texans is his first head coaching position, what he called his “dream job” in a statement, adding that his family “is thrilled to be back in H-Town.”

Newly named Houston Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans, center, is presented a jersey by team owner Cal McNair, left, and general manager Nick Caserio, right.

Smith said Ryans — along with his wife, Jamila, two sons and daughter — have been around some in the meantime and never withdrew membership from Fifth Ward. Ryans has also continued to serve on the board of the Discovery Youth Foundation, a summer enrichment program for teens started by Smith and his wife, Karen.

But now, the congregation is excited to have him back long-term.

“They were just so elated,” said Smith, who attended the recent news conference officially announcing Ryan’s hiring.

“He’s very humble, so he’s not going to want too much attention. … But he’s proud that he’s a member of the Church of Christ.”

Born in Kansas in 1928, Hunter attended high school in California before earning a bachelor’s degree in business at Abilene Christian College, as it was known at the time, in 1952.

He went on to serve in the Navy during the Korean War of the early 1950s before returning to Abilene Christian in various roles over an academic career that spanned more than three decades: director of special events, director of alumni relations, assistant to the president, vice president for public relations and development, vice president of the university and finally senior vice president.

Bob Hunter attends the opening assembly at ACU’s Moody Coliseum for the last time on Aug. 29, 2022.

Hunter also served 20 years in the Texas Legislature beginning in 1986, helping to build a community college campus in Abilene and chairing the state’s budget for higher education.

In 2006, Abilene Christian named its Hunter Welcome Center in honor of his contributions to the school, and last year, it announced the Bob Hunter Sing Song stage, which will be used for the annual musical performance he began.

Calling him “Mr. ACU,” former ACU President Royce Money said Hunter “was the epitome of tradition and authored many of the ones we love today at the university.”

“He stood for everything this Christian university stood for. I admired him because he used every phase of his life in a productive way. Look at what he spanned, especially politics and multiple generations. Students, alumni, donors from every age respected him and what he stood for and dedicated his life to.”

Hunter was preceded in death by his wife of 67 years, Shirley. Together, they had two sons, Kent and Les, and a daughter, Carole Phillips — all ACU alumni.

Read Hunter’s full obituary on ACU’s website.

Franklin Florence

A pivotal figure in Rochester’s civil rights movement, Florence died Feb. 1. Memorial services are planned for 6 p.m. Friday, Feb. 10, at the Central Church of Christ there. A second service will be conducted at 11 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 11, at Rochester’s Riverside Convention Center.

“Minister Florence was a giant among giants in Rochester’s proud legacy of social justice and civil rights,” Rochester Mayor Malik Evans said in a statement shortly after Florence’s death.

“When we use the expression ‘standing on the shoulders of giants,’ we are talking about men like Minister Franklin D. Florence, bar none.”

“Minister Florence was a giant among giants in Rochester’s proud legacy of social justice and civil rights.”

Florence was born in Miami, Fla., on Aug. 9, 1934, to Hozel and Bertha Florence. As a teenager, he moved to Nashville to attend the Nashville Christian Institute and was mentored by evangelist and educator Marshall Keeble.

Florence studied at NCI from 1948 to 1952 and later attended Pepperdine University in Los Angeles for two years before returning home as the minister for the 18th Street Church of Christ in West Palm Beach, Fla.

He was only 25 when he moved with his wife and children to Rochester in 1959 to become the minister for the Reynolds Street congregation.

Like the Florence family, many African American families migrated to the New York area in that era to search for better lives. In 1964 those ambitions confronted a painful reality when a bloody race riot resulted in five deaths, four of which occurred in a helicopter crash. More than 300 people were injured and 900 arrested in two days of rioting.

Violence had begun when the Rochester Police Department attempted to make an arrest during a July 24 block party.

After the riots, Florence led the organization FIGHT, which stands for freedom, independence, God, honor, today. During his career, he took on corporate giants like Bausch and Lomb, Xerox and Kodak, forcing them to do better in terms of hiring and dealing with discrimination in their companies.

Historians credited him with forcing Kodak and Xerox, the dominant employers in Rochester at the time, to train and hire Black people, which in turn spurred changes across corporate America.

In 1971, Florence was an observer during the Attica Prison riot where, on Sept. 12 of that year, he delivered a sermon to the protesting inmates.

Florence was a member of the anti-poverty group Action for a Better Community and the Rochester Northeast Development Corporation.

In 1972, he ran for New York State Assembly and lost. He also worked for Jesse Jackson’s 1984 presidential campaign.

In his later years, Florence protested against police brutality in Rochester. In a 2018 interview, his son and fellow minister Clifford Florence Sr. told a local television journalist that his father shared a special bond with a number of civil rights leaders, from Malcolm X to Al Sharpton.

“There was great connection and great history with Mr. Sharpton and my dad,” he said.

Clifford Florence Sr., who is now the minister for the Central Church of Christ in Rochester, said Malcolm X’s  last stop before his assassination was in Rochester, where he spoke standing next to Franklin Florence and Connie Mitchell, the first African American to be elected to the Monroe County Legislature.

Fittingly, Florence’s name and image are embedded in the city landscape on a mural on the outer wall of East High School alongside Mitchell and Malcolm X and as the namesake of the Minister Franklin D. Florence Civil Rights Heritage Site at Baden Park.

William Jones, minister for the North Greece Road Church of Christ in Rochester, told The Christian Chronicle, “Brother Florence was a central figure in the battle for equity and civil rights in this area.”

New York State Sen. Jeremy Cooney said in a tweet, “Minister Florence was a giant in the fight for equality. He will be dearly missed, my prayers are with his family and loved ones.”

In his statement, the mayor said, “Since his arrival in Rochester in the 1950s, Minister Florence graced our community and the national stage with a dynamic voice that championed the concerns of Black Americans and the universal causes of social justice.”

Alluding to the words of the late Congressman John Lewis, Evans said Florence “was never afraid to get into ‘good and necessary trouble’ to expose racial and systemic injustice across various issues. These included: quality housing; criminal justice and corrections; fair labor practices; equitable education, child welfare and generational poverty.

“The city of Rochester is truly blessed to have been the home and canvas of grace of Minister Franklin D. Florence, a giant among giants.”

Florence’s papers and those of the Reynolds Street Church of Christ are part of the special collections of the University of Rochester.

HAMIL R. HARRIS is a Christian Chronicle correspondent and a veteran journalist who spent two decades with the Washington Post. He preaches regularly for the Glenarden Church of Christ in Maryland.

Richard A. Rose Sr.

A native of Atlanta, Rose attended public schools in Detroit before beginning his training at the institute — which educated Black primary and secondary students from Churches of Christ from the 1940s to the late ’60s — at 13.

Keeble, the famous Black evangelist who baptized an estimated 30,000 people before his 1968 death, served as the institute’s president and would often bring a few of his protégés with him to gospel meetings across the U.S.

After graduating from the Nashville Christian Institute, Rose studied at Alabama Christian College in Montgomery — now Faulkner University — the Central Ohio School for Preachers and Teachers and Cincinnati Christian University. He went on to preach at several congregations in Ohio and Michigan and sing in the gospel quartet Sons of Praise before retiring to his home state of Georgia.

Marshall Keeble sits with a few of his “boy preachers,” including Hassen Reed and Robert McBride, both standing, and Robert Wood and Fred Gray.

Rose is survived by his wife of 50 years, Everly Jean, two sons, seven grandchildren, two brothers and three sisters.

Read Rose’s full obituary here.

Laura had home-schooled both her sons from kindergarten through high school. York College was dear to Laura’s heart and part of her story. Both her parents and other family members were alumni. Laura treasured her years as a student and the lifelong friendships begun there. After graduating from Harding University in Searcy, Ark., she also taught at York for two years and there began dating her future husband, Chuck, when he was on campus for homecoming.

In the fall of 2018, Laura was also busy in her home congregation, the East Hills Church of Christ in St. Joseph, Mo. She had always worked tirelessly to serve and encourage those around her. She was always brainstorming new ideas to spread joy.

Each year, Laura made plans for the youth to take Valentines to members in nursing homes and to carol there for Christmas. She and Chuck helped organize the holiday adopt-a-family program each year. One of her favorite ideas was planning a 1970s theme surprise birthday party for the East Hills preacher, Keith Percell. She helped get kids to youth rallies, Leadership Training for Christ and York for Panther Days.

In the fall of 2018, the thief came who tried to steal Laura’s joy. Her breast cancer diagnosis was devastating. The years that followed were filled with appointments, surgeries, radiation, scans, hospital stays, lab work, disappointment, chemotherapy, plasma transfusions, hair loss, emergency rooms. Heartbreak. But in the moments in between, Laura stayed busy.

A collage of supporters wearing “Team Laura” shirts in honor of Laura Morris in her fight with cancer.

She sought joy daily, even when her body rebelled and energy waned. She sat front and center every night of York’s Songfest because Conrad was one of the hosts.

She returned to campus for homecomings, choir concerts and theater performances because Caden was on the technical crew, and her nephew was on the stage.

She attended the weddings of Conrad’s college friends, and then was overjoyed to attend Conrad’s own wedding.

In the four years after the fall of 2018 she traveled to Playa del Carmen, Maine, Florida, Colorado, South Dakota, Hawaii, Tennessee, New Hampshire, Montana, Chicago, Vermont and Minnesota. She hosted her aunts, uncles and cousins at her house in the country. She flew to Houston to help take care of a new baby nephew. She sat in a theater to watch “Top Gun: Maverick,” twice.

The late Laura Morris, pictured with her husband, Chuck, found joy despite her suffering.

In the fall of 2019, Laura began spreading joy to others with a new project. She belonged to online groups of other cancer patients and was saddened by how many lacked a positive support system. She was so grateful for her own army of support and wanted to make a difference for others. She began assembling “Joy Packs” to deliver to the oncology office for distribution to newly diagnosed breast cancer patients or those facing a hard prognosis.

Laura filled bags with items of comfort: lip balm, cozy socks, chocolate, tissues, a coffee gift card and a personal, handwritten note. Over the years as friends and family learned of her ministry, they began contributing items for the Joy Packs, and Laura faithfully delivered bags when she went in for her own medical appointments.

It brought her such joy whenever she saw a patient carrying one of her Joy Packs or met someone she had encouraged.

She adopted a mantra from the words of an author and speaker Emory Austin: “Some days there won’t be a song in your heart. Sing anyway.”

In the fall of 2022, the congregation that loved Laura so dearly gathered in the church auditorium after potluck on a cloudy Sunday in October. They gathered to continue her work.

A month earlier, this same room had been filled to overflowing with Laura’s friends and family as they grieved her together. But that Sunday they formed an assembly line to fill Joy Packs, tucking in a personal note that included Laura’s own words:

“I am so sorry that you are also walking this difficult journey. I hope this Joy Pack will be an encouragement to you. As I write this, friends are praying specifically for you. I hope this brings you comfort.”

Within an hour, the tables were stacked with Joy Packs, and when they were done Percell prayed for the other Lauras who would receive them.

DONNA EMBRAY is a member of the East Hills Church of Christ in St. Joseph, Mo. She grew up the daughter of a minister who preached in small congregations in South Dakota. She earned her bachelor’s degree in religious studies from York College in 1992.

Walker served as minister for the Wyoming Avenue Church of Christ in Detroit for 46 years, but his influence extended far beyond the Motor City.

In August, members of the Detroit congregation conducted a “Love, Honor and Appreciation,” service for Walker that he attended.

Leonardo Gilbert, minister for the Sheldon Heights Church of Christ in Chicago, said Walker was one of several ministers from Montgomery, Ala., who dramatically impacted congregations across the brotherhood, likening him to Daniel Harrison, Fred Gray and others.

“Dallas Walker was a teacher of the word. He was a preacher’s preacher, and yet his most powerful attribute was his humility,” Gilbert said. He added that Walker was a strong supporter of the biannual Crusade for Christ under Harrison’s leadership.

Fred Gray speaks at the Nashville Christian Institute’s final reunion.

“They were great friends,” Gilbert said.

Gray, 91, a prominent civil rights advocate, attorney for Rosa Parks, and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, was a childhood friend of Walker.

“Dallas Walker was an outstanding evangelist,” Gray said. “He grew up in the same congregation I grew up in, the Holt Street Church of Christ in Montgomery.

“I will be 92 on the 14th of December, and I have talked to him for years,” Gray said. “I called him recently because I have a Martin Luther King speaking engagement on Jan. 16, and I was trying to locate a church.”

Many of Walker’s sermons may be found on YouTube with such titles as “God Made Us, Let Him Shape Us for Him,” “The Love of God” and “The Gospel Truth.” A particularly well-known message was one he preached in 2017 at the Elwood Park Church of Christ in Detroit — a sermon titled “Remarkable Things.”

Walker was born Aug. 6, 1939, in Vernon, Ala. He attended Lamar County Training School. After graduation, he enrolled in Southwestern Christian College in Terrell, Texas.

He went on to earn degrees in psychology from the University of Detroit and a master’s degree in counseling education from Wayne State University, also in Detroit.

In 2015, the Detroit City Council named a portion of Wyoming Avenue after Walker.

Brenda Jones, then the council’s president, attends the Wyoming Avenue church.

Jones called the dedication historic and well deserved because of Walker’s long years of service to the congregation and because it was “the first street in the city of Detroit with a secondary street named for a Church of Christ minister.”

Walker was preceded in death by Beverly A. Walker, his wife of 64 years. He is survived by numerous family members and children.

Joy McMillon, 1941-2022

Those were the final words that Joy McMillon said to Scott Young, worship minister for the Memorial Road Church of Christ in Oklahoma City, when Young visited her in the hospital.

McMillon, a counselor, teacher and encourager of countless Christians worldwide, suffered a stroke and was diagnosed with leukemia just before her death on Dec. 10. She was 81.

“Joy was one of the greatest women our church has ever known — a pillar in this church, in this community for many, many, many years,” said Phil Brookman, preaching minister for the Memorial Road church. For those who knew her, McMillon provided a “breathtaking portrait of the gentleness and the wisdom of God,” Brookman said.

Among her many roles — in teaching and in ministry — McMillon served as a reporter and editor for The Christian Chronicle. As recently as last month she proofread pages for the newspaper. She also helped with processing gifts for the Chronicle, an international newspaper for Churches of Christ.

She was born Oct. 15, 1941, in Wichita Falls, Texas, and grew up in Midwest City, Okla. She attended Oklahoma Christian College (now University), graduating in 1963 with a bachelor’s degree. She earned a master’s from Central State College (now the University of Central Oklahoma).

Joy and Lynn McMillon in 2021.

She married Lynn A McMillon on Sept. 1, 1962. She taught English and supported her husband as he attended graduate school in Memphis, Tenn., and later at Baylor University in Texas.

Her husband’s career brought him to Oklahoma Christian University, where Joy served in a variety of roles and ministries, accumulating nearly 40 years of service spread across seven decades. She worked as an instructor of English and a public relations officer. For nearly a decade she served as coordinator of the Oklahoma Christian Women’s Association (OCWA).

Joy McMillon, with Scott LaMascus, during her time as managing editor of The Christian Chronicle.

Shortly after the university acquired The Christian Chronicle in 1981, Joy served as the newspaper’s managing editor and later as associate editor. After stepping back from that role, she continued to serve as an administrative assistant.

She was an active member of the Memorial Road church. For 16 years she directed and delivered the main weekly lesson for the church’s Center for Women’s Bible Study. She was a widely sought-after presenter at women’s conferences and national events. She and her husband also conducted marriage enrichment seminars for church groups nationally.

She made 32 international trips, most of which involved teaching, mission oversight and encouragement. She and her husband led four international campaigns of Oklahoma Christian students to Australia, Greece and England.

She and a friend once owned and operated a consignment dress shop, dubbed The Snooty Fox. They joked that they wore more of the clothes than they sold.

Lynn and Joy McMillon with their family in 2021.

She and her husband recently celebrated their 60^th anniversary. Other survivors include their sons, Jeff (Sydney) McMillon of Tulsa and Greg (Regina) McMillon of Edmond, Okla.; grandchildren Shelby (Michael) Cooper of Oklahoma City, Savannah (Jordan) Phillips of Edmond, Hannah McMillon of Edmond, Haley McMillon of Edmond (engaged to Walker LaRue), Caden McMillon of Edmond, Sydney Massey of Shawnee and Kaylea Massey of Edmond.

In 2019, at a dinner celebrating Lynn McMillon’s retirement as president and CEO of The Christian Chronicle, Oklahoma Christian University President John deSteiguer hugs Joy McMillon after announcing that a conference room on campus will bear the McMillon name.

Joy McMillon had a heart for missions and was a longtime supporter of the Village of Hope, a ministry that serves orphans and at-risk children in Ghana, West Africa. In lieu of flowers, gifts may be sent through Heartbeat for Hope, a nonprofit that supports the Village of Hope. Make donations online or mail checks to Heartbeat for Hope, P.O. Box 2071, Edmond, OK 73083.

A Missouri native and graduate of Harding University in Searcy, Ark., Olbricht taught at his alma mater and the defunct Northeastern Christian Junior College in Villanova, Pa. He preached in Arkansas, Missouri and New Jersey and directed Campaigns Northeast/Southeast evangelism teams. He also authored books with biblical analysis, including Truth for Today’s commentaries on Colossians and Philemon.

Dan Cooper, retired minister and current elder of the Pitman Church of Christ in Sewell, N.J., is one of many who felt Olbricht’s personal impact.

“Owen taught me more about life, ministry and evangelism than I ever learned at any semester of university training,” Cooper said.

Admirers of Olbricht had even organized a Facebook fan page dedicated to him.

One of his brothers, the late Tom Olbricht, founded the Christian Scholars’ Conference.

Gifts in Owen Olbricht’s honor can be made to Truth for Today World Mission School, 2209 Benton Ave, Searcy, AR 72143.

Read Olbricht’s full obituary here.

Two days before her death at her ranch in Hurricane Mills, Tenn., the 90-year-old country-music legend posted two verses, repeating the second verse to stress her point.

Lynn’s final Instagram post said: “Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God. John 3:20-21”

The feisty superstar experienced plenty of darkness and light and shared the gritty details in a career that changed the role of women in Nashville. Lynn was raised poor in the Kentucky hills and spent years in church pews before she started singing in honky-tonks. Her husband Oliver “Dolittle” Lynn struggled with alcoholism, but they stuck together in a union that inspired songs about love and loyalty, as well as break-ups and fist fights, such as “Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ On Your Mind).”

Lynn vowed to tell the truth about both sides of her life. She loved to sing hymns and gospel music, while critics hailed the rhinestone feminism of her hits such as “You Ain’t Woman Enough,” “The Pill,” “Rated X” and “You’re Looking at Country.”

In her “Coal Miner’s Daughter” memoir, Lynn described her faith journey: “I believed it all, but for some reason I was never baptized. After I started in music, I got away from going to church and reading the Bible. I believe I was living the way God meant me to, but I wasn’t giving God the right attention.”

In that same 1976 memoir, she added: “I’m trying to lead a good Christian life, especially since I got baptized two years ago. So there ain’t too much spicy to tell about me — just the truth.” Christian Chronicle editor Bobby Ross Jr. noted that she later added a strong kicker to that: “Nobody’s perfect. The only one that ever was, was crucified.”

Anyone who explored the details of Lynn’s life and music knew that she wasn’t a good fit in the “elite feminist establishment” or among advocates of a “status-quo idea of domesticity,” noted Russell Moore, Christianity Today’s editor in chief.

“Lynn endured more than anyone should have to bear,” he wrote. “She will be remembered for seeing the pain around her and within her and challenging people to stop seeing all that pain as ‘just the way things are.’”

Consider, noted Moore, the working-class realities woven into Lynn’s song “One’s on the Way,” written from the viewpoint of mother who feels abandoned in her own home.

“The girls in New York City, they all march for women’s lib / And Better Homes and Gardens shows the modern way to live / And the pill may change the world tomorrow, but meanwhile, today / Here in Topeka, the flies are a buzzin’ / The dog is a barkin’ and the floor needs a scrubbin’ / One needs a spankin’ and one needs a huggin’ / Lord, one’s on the way.”

The flip side of that hit record was that Lynn never gave up on her marriage and she never lost faith in the family ties that bind.

“Mostly, she sang about home, and all that entails. It was this ability to connect with the broken hearts of her hearers that propelled her to stardom as the leading lady of Music Row,” said Anglican theologian Brandon Meeks, writing for The American Conservative magazine.

“Life was never easy for Loretta Lynn. But she took all of its punches standing up, absorbing the hard knocks, and giving them back to the world as melodies of hope. She taught us to receive whatever dark obstacles Providence lays in our path as diamonds in the rough.”

In a free-flowing Facebook post, Marchetti wrote: “It was so surreal because yesterday mom was talking and very animated telling us I am ready to go to heaven. Doo is coming to take me home. They told me I’m really going home. She really said that yesterday. She knew. She just knew and was happy.”

TERRY MATTINGLY leads GetReligion.org and lives in Oak Ridge, Tenn. He is a senior fellow at the Overby Center at the University of Mississippi.

Universal syndicate column, used with permission of the author.

“Our precious mom, Loretta Lynn, passed away peacefully this morning, October 4th, in her sleep at home in her beloved ranch in Hurricane Mills,” her family said in a statement posted on Twitter.

In her 1976 autobiography, Loretta Lynn, then 44, reflected on her “funny beliefs,” which she said sometimes mixed religion and superstition.

Loretta Lynn discussed her decision to be baptized in her 1976 autobiography “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” which became the basis for an Oscar-winning film.

“I’m trying to lead a good Christian life, especially since I got baptized two years ago,” she wrote. “So there ain’t too much spicy to tell about me — just the truth.”

Elsewhere in the book, she proclaimed, “Nobody’s perfect. The only one that ever was, was crucified.”

Lynn grew up in the coal-mining community of Butcher Holler, Ky., also known as Butcher Hollow. 

She attended church on Sundays and listened to preacher Elzie Banks “tell us about God and the devil.”

“I believed it all, but for some reason, I was never baptized,” she said. “After I started in music, I got away from going to church and reading the Bible. I believe I was living the way God meant me to, but I wasn’t giving God the right attention.”

But then her band member John Thornhill, twin brother of her band leader Dave Thornhill, was baptized. 

For about a year, Lynn studied the Bible with John Thornhill and — sometimes — argued over the Scriptures in the back of her bus.

John Thornhill stopped drinking and staying out late. He began praying whenever he got the chance. He bought grape juice and crackers for the Lord’s Supper on Sundays. 

For about a year, Lynn studied the Bible with John Thornhill and — sometimes — argued over the Scriptures in the back of her bus.

Eventually, the country star decided to be baptized.

“I was real nervous because the Bible says you have to be immersed, and like I’ve said so many times, I’m scared to death of water,” Lynn wrote.

“I’ve tried to keep up my religion since then,” she said in the 1976 book. “I can’t get to church most Sundays because of my traveling, but I’ll read the Bible whenever I can.

“I want to make another religious album someday, but it will have to be without instruments. The Church of Christ feels you should make music in your hearts, but they’re against instruments for religious music.”

Terry Rush

Terry Rush, retired minister for the Memorial Drive Church of Christ in Tulsa, Okla., went to see his friend Dave Thornhill before one of Lynn’s concerts in the 1980s.

Dave Thornhill introduced Rush to Lynn, and the preacher and the singer became close friends, Rush said in a 2021 interview with The Christian Chronicle.

“She just adopted me because I was a preacher in the Church of Christ,” said Rush, who for many years directed the now-defunct Tulsa Workshop, originally known as the “International Soul Winning Workshop.” “I ended up going out to her farm in Tennessee and meeting her husband.

“The neat thing,” he added, “is that she really was serious about her faith and a devout member of the church.”

Update: Rush posted this tribute on his Facebook page after learning of Lynn’s death:

THE PASSING OF LORETTA LYNN

Loretta Lynn was a very kind and gentle lady. While fame was hers in abundance, she maintained a consistently beautiful spirit of humility.

We were good friends. Loretta would ask me to meet with her between shows at Branson. In between shows, we would sit backstage and visit up a storm. Too, she would invite me to her house when I would be scheduled to speak in Nashville.

Her life was a mixture of fame coupled with hardship. In the midst of both extremes, her faith in God was strong. She blessed people world-wide via her talent and her attentive compassion.

Loretta’s reach was far beyond her imagination; yet she maintained her ability to do life as the Coal Miner’s Daughter.

Rest In Peace my friend.

Read more details on Lynn’s life and death via The Associated Press.

BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. Reach him at bobby.ross@christianchronicle.org.

From the earliest days of his dual careers in ministry and education, Hazelip had a profound impact on the lives of thousands.

Hazelip, who served as president of Lipscomb University, which is associated with Churches of Christ, from September 1986 to May 1997, died Sept. 21. He was 92.

The university’s leaders remember Hazelip for his gentle spirit, deep faith and huge influence.

Harold H. Hazelip, former president of Lipscomb University, has died at age 92.

“We mourn the loss of someone who has had a tremendous impact on the Lipscomb community — from starting our study abroad program to adding academic accreditations to leading our first master’s degrees at Lipscomb,” Lipscomb President Candice McQueen said. “And, personally, Dr. Hazelip will always be ‘my president’ as I was blessed to be a Lipscomb student under his outstanding leadership.

“He led with quiet confidence and a strong vision for an academically advancing university,” McQueen added. “In my first year serving as Lipscomb president, he has been a friend, a supporter and encourager. His wise words — whether speaking as a leader, a Bible teacher, a minister or a mentor — will forever be with me.”

Hazelip became president of Lipscomb in 1986 after serving 14 years as dean of Harding School of Theology in Memphis. He retired from the presidency in 1997 and assumed the role of chancellor. He also served a three-month stint as interim president in summer 2005 and most recently served as president emeritus.

“Harold Hazelip was gifted in preaching God’s story, wise in his leading an academic community and gentle in his spirit with people,” said L. Randolph Lowry, chancellor and president from 2005-2021. “He provided wise counsel to me as a new president — counsel that can only be provided by someone who had walked the leadership path in a thoughtful and effective way.

“Lipscomb has evolved into a nationally recognized university because of the foundation established through his vision, diligent work and careful guidance,” Lowry added. “We are the beneficiaries of his generous leadership and thank God for his exemplary life.”

Read an expanded obit on the Lipscomb website.

KIM CHAUDOIN is vice president of public relations and communications at Lipscomb University.

A service honoring his life is planned for 1:30 p.m. July 9 at The Hills Church of Christ’s North Richland Hills campus, preceded by a private burial at Laurel Land Memorial Park.

Depending on the era, Faulkner’s friends and colleagues at Abilene Christian University may remember him as a teacher, minister, colleague or the much taller half of the Marriage Enrichment Seminar he began with his college roommate and friend, Dr. Carl Brecheen.

To many, he was the Bible professor who could command a full house of freshmen in ACU’s Cullen Auditorium. Others knew him in his second career as founder of Resources for Living, an employee assistance counseling service.

Dr. Carl Brecheen and Dr. Paul Faulkner presented their Marriage Enrichment Seminar to more than 2 million people in seven nations.

His oldest friends remember the collegiate track and field champion whose titles included the Drake Relays, Texas Relays (three times) and Kansas Relays (twice). He was the Wildcats’ best in the javelin throw and pole vault 1949-52, holding the school record for each by the time he graduated.

Inevitably, they remember his voice: big, deep, slow and likely to burst into a long, head-shaking laugh at himself at any moment.

He was born Sept. 24, 1929, in Fort Worth, Texas, and was a track and field star at Paschal High School. Faulkner was headed to Rice University when his older sister persuaded him to attend Abilene Christian. He often recalled that she persisted late into the night on the subject until he finally told her, “Fine. If you’ll let me go to bed I’ll go to ACC.”

In Abilene he began dating fellow Paschal graduate Gladys Shoemaker (’52) and they married July 12, 1952, after completing their degrees. And at ACU he met classmate Brecheen, the other great partner of his life, as they walked to church from their dormitory the first week of their freshman year.

He earned a master’s degree from ACU in 1961, and master’s and doctoral degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1966 and 1968, majoring in psychology.  He was a licensed marriage and family therapist and a clinical and supervisory member of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy, founding the Marriage and Family Institute at ACU in 1979. For many years, the institute was one of only two nationally accredited MFT programs in Texas.

Before and even after joining ACU as a faculty member and for seven years as dean of men, he preached for Churches of Christ in Kansas, North Carolina and Texas.

Faulkner had a major role in founding ACU’s Marriage and Family Institute in the Department of Marriage and Family Therapy.

In 1974, he and his lifelong friend Brecheen conducted their first Marriage Enrichment Seminar. Five years later, a seminar at the Abilene Civic Center that drew 1,600 in attendance was videotaped and became part of a video series that was seen by more than 2 million people worldwide. Seminars were conducted in 33 states and seven countries over 32 years.

He retired from ACU in 1992 after 35 years on the faculty but continued teaching as an adjunct professor after founding Resources for Living, a counseling and consulting service for major American businesses including Walmart, McLane Trucking and Kroger Grocery Stores. His syndicated, one-minute radio broadcast, “Making Life Work for Your Family,” was heard on more than 600 stations nationally and he spoke for seminars and national conventions of numerous corporations. In 1996, he moved the company to Austin and he and Gladys settled in nearby Dripping Springs where they purchased a home on a small ranch they called Cypress Springs. He sold the company in 2008 and retired again.

A passion in the last 30 years of his life was supporting minister couples through the Ministers’ Renewal Workshop, a weekend retreat he and Gladys conducted with three other couples, welcoming those whose life in ministry brought stress or pain that often could not be shared in the churches where they served. The workshops provided a time of healing and counsel. The Ministers’ Support Network, a part of ACU’s Siburt Institute, is heir to that ministry.

Faulkner Meditation Garden, an outdoor contemplative space alongside Lunsford Foundation Trail and Faubus Fountain Lake at ACU, was dedicated in 2019 to honor the ministry of Paul and Gladys.

Faulkner was one of ACU students’ most beloved Bible professors for his personable, breezy classroom style and sharing life experiences. He was named the university’s Teacher of the Year in 1982.

He received the Trustees Teacher of the Year Award in 1982 and was a 1994 inductee into the ACU Sports Hall of Fame. Faulkner and Brecheen, together with their wives, also received the Christian Service Award in 2001. He received Distinguished Christian Service Awards from Harding and Pepperdine universities and an honorary doctorate from Pepperdine. His publications include three books, one of which was co-authored with Brecheen: “What Every Family Needs: Whatever Happened to Mom, Dad & Kids?”

Of all his accomplishments, family was his greatest. He made every effort to build relationships, and provide place and space for gathering, celebrating, playing, laughing and conversation. He and Gladys traveled the globe with their grandchildren and attended every sporting and musical event they could.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Fred and Consuelo (’50) Faulkner; Gladys, his wife of 64 years; sisters Dr. Dartha Fay Starr (’41) and Jean Faulkner; and a brother, Fred Faulkner (’49). Among survivors are two daughters and two sons and their spouses: Debbie (Faulkner ’76) and Randy Clinton (’77) of Keller, Texas; Von (’78) and Dorsi Faulkner of Austin, Texas; Brad (’83) and Denise Faulkner of Henderson, Texas; and Connie (Faulkner ’86) and Larry Brown (’88 M.A.) of Flower Mound, Texas. He is also survived by eight grandchildren: Michael and Nick Catanese, Dylan Faulkner, Hunter and Jessica Clinton, Charles Rotenberry, M.D., (’12) and Hailey (Clinton ’12) Rotenberry, Corban (’14) and Haley (Dale ’16) Brown, Daniel (’17) and Brenna Brown, Ashton and Cris Bruyere; and Zane Faulkner; and by seven great-grandchildren: Caden and Charlee Catanese, Campbell and Ford Rotenberry, Violet and Kit Clinton, and Archie Brown.

Those wishing to honor his memory may do so by loving and caring for their families, and supporting the marriages and families of others around them, and by a gift to the Paul and Gladys Faulkner Center for Marriage and Family (ACU Box 29132, Abilene, Texas 79699-9132 or bit.ly/PaulFaulkner).

Though he was 89 years old, his May 27 death shocked former students and colleagues around the world. As more than one remarked, it just seemed he would live forever. He will, just not with us for the next little while.

Professor Charlie Marler served as the chair of Cheryl Mann Bacon’s master’s thesis more than 40 years ago.

Charlie was my teacher. He chaired my master’s thesis. He hired me to be his graduate assistant and to ACU’s JMC faculty. He was my elder, mentor, editor and friend. I met him in the fall of 1974 when I was a cocky yearbook editor and he was a freshly minted Ph.D. on a mission.

Forty-eight years later, I spoke at his memorial service.

In preparation, I scrolled through Facebook posts by and about “Doc,” as his students called him, and came across a post he wrote when I retired. He related with remarkable detail our almost five-decade friendship and concluded by discussing four priorities we shared:

• The love of civil discourse.
• A passion for the First Amendment.
• Writing well and teaching others to write well.
• Family.

Dozens of tributes posted by former students reprised those themes.

Paul Anthony is a former editor of The Optimist, ACU’s student newspaper. He’s now a doctoral student himself. He recalled a conversation in Doc’s office when he was working through his views on some difficult topics.

He said Doc “never felt the need to make clear his own position. He knew that what I needed was an ear, not an opinion. The result was that I came away from those talks a more tolerant, more compassionate, more open-minded person.”

Marler began his ACU career in the publicity/communications office, and was the first full-time sports information director at the university.

That was typical. Charlie had no patience for shallow thinking. However, he loved a civil but challenging conversation with students or colleagues who might disagree with him.

Many students described that civility as kindness. The student who was struggling to pass received exactly the same kindness as the one he was encouraging to go to grad school.

He often paraphrased Deuteronomy and said we must teach our students in the classrooms, the halls, the labs, our offices, the sidewalks, the parking lots and our homes. His civility and kindness were like that, too. Everywhere and at all times.

Then there was his passion for the First Amendment.

I remember him vividly describing his visit to James Madison’s grave on the grounds of Montpelier in Virginia. When I had the chance to visit there a few years later and stood in that small family cemetery, I could just imagine the conversation that must have transpired in Charlie’s mind as he stood by the grave of his hero.

Charlie understood that nothing else about our constitutional form of government works if we fail to honor and protect those freedoms — of religion, speech, the press and the right of the people to assemble and petition for redress of grievances.

At May Commencement in 1987, Dr. Charlie Marler was named ACU’s Outstanding Teacher of the Year.

He believed passionately that all truth is God’s truth — and if the truth is hidden or suppressed, then we cannot make informed decisions — about government, religion or life.

That passion inspired his philosophy of student journalism, which demanded absolute excellence of his students — and occasionally drove university presidents absolutely crazy.

But he believed that if we want students to go out into the world prepared to speak truth to power they have to practice it — free and unfettered.

Optimist staff members consistently rose to that challenge because they knew he would go to the mat for them — and to the president’s office, if necessary — and because disappointing him was unthinkable.

At the heart of not disappointing Charlie was writing well. Professional journalists all over the country hear Doc’s voice in their ears when they recall that:

• A lot is two words.
• That and which are not interchangeable.
• Redundancy wastes the reader’s time.
• Always cite your sources.
• And my personal favorite — avoid dead construction.

Grammarians call passive constructions like “‘It is” and “There are,” etc., expletives. But Charlie called them dead because excellent writing should never have a vague subject and a passive verb. Excellent writing — and an excellent Christian life — should be focused, vibrant and alive.

His was.

Finally, Charlie wrote about family. Anyone who was around Charlie for even a little while knew that he adored his wife, Peggy, and he loved being a dad and a grandfather. Great journalism was important. Family was more important.

My friend Lance Fleming, one of Charlie’s successors in his early role as ACU’s first sports information director, wrote that when he sought Doc’s advice about a job change, “He agreed that my time on the road was better spent being at home with Jill, Ashley, and Ryan.”

Cheryl Mann Bacon succeeded Charlie Marler as chair of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at Abilene Christian University.

For two years, Doc and Peggy had prayed every day for Rex, Lance and Jill’s oldest son, and for two years Doc ended every email or text to Lance with the words, “God, please kill Rex’s cancer.”

On the morning after Rex died, Lance had this message from Doc:

“Wow, God is good. Rex is healed forever; you guys now have an even more special connection to heaven. You know hope is real. You will be finding new ways to touch Rex every day.”

“Wow, God is good. Charlie is healed forever. We now have an even more special connection to heaven. We know hope is real, and we will find new ways to hear Doc’s words in our ears every day.”

So with an uncharacteristic catch in my voice, I closed my remarks with a very careful edit of Charlie’s own words:

“Wow, God is good. Charlie is healed forever. We now have an even more special connection to heaven. We know hope is real, and we will find new ways to hear Doc’s words in our ears every day.”

CHERYL MANN BACON is a Christian Chronicle correspondent who served for 20 years as chair of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at Abilene Christian University. She succeeded Charlie Marler, who had served for 19 years. Contact cheryl@christianchronicle.org.

ABILENE, Texas — Dr. Charlie H. “Doc” Marler, revered professor emeritus of journalism and mass communication, and influential historian who taught and mentored Abilene Christian University students for 58 years, died May 27, 2022, in Abilene, Texas, following a short illness. He was 89.

Marler was born April 13, 1933, in Garfield, Arkansas, and graduated from Will Rogers High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1951. He wed Abilene Christian classmate Peggy Gambill on Dec. 30, 1954, in Fulton, Kentucky.

He earned a B.A. in English (1955) and M.A. in history (1968) from ACU and a doctorate in journalism from the University of Missouri (1974). Marler’s distinguished 58-year career on the Hill in Abilene — the fourth-longest full-time role in university history — included 48 years of full-time service (1955-2003) and part-time senior faculty teaching (2003-13), followed by nearly daily volunteer work as an unofficial historian until the day of his passing.

He was hired by his alma mater in 1955 as assistant director of publicity, then took leave to serve in the U.S. Army’s 8th Infantry Division in Colorado and in Goeppingen, Germany (1956-57), and in the Army Reserve’s 490th Military Affairs and Civilian Government Company in Abilene (1958-59).

Marler began his ACU career in the publicity/communications office, and was the first full-time sports information director at the university.

Marler returned to campus to serve as ACU’s first sports information director (1958-63), associate director of development (1963-64) and director of information and publications (1964-71). Another leave (1971-74) allowed him to complete doctoral work at the University of Missouri, where he also was a research assistant in the Freedom of Information Center.

His full-time JMC legacy began in earnest in 1974 as assistant professor, then professor (1979) and chair (1987-98). His teaching specialties of communication law, opinion writing and publication design made him a department icon known for meticulous standards, tough grading and indefatigable commitment to principles that guided his work. He was named the university’s Outstanding Teacher of the Year in 1987.

“He treasured and honored the First Amendment of the Constitution second only to Scripture because he understood and taught each one of us that freedom and truth are inextricably entwined,” said Dr. Cheryl Mann Bacon, professor and chair emerita of JMC.

During the 22 years he advised The Optimist, Marler was famous, and at times feared, for the elaborate rating system he used for print issues. He panned each page in mandatory staff meetings and, once the Don H. Morris Center opened in 1978, posted them in the JMC hallway after each edition. Yellow, blue and red dots marked each blunder, with the biggest red ones flagging the most heinous – “the Pullet Surprise.” Green dots noted the best writing, design and editorial work.

“Charlie spent his career pointing out the errors and mistakes of his students, and yet, to him, none of us were the sum of our errors and mistakes. … He saw each of us aspirationally, as what we someday would be, what God would do through us.”

“Charlie spent his career pointing out the errors and mistakes of his students, and yet, to him, none of us were the sum of our errors and mistakes,” said Dr. Kenneth Pybus, J.D., associate professor and chair of JMC. “He saw each of us aspirationally, as what we someday would be, what God would do through us. Even when I was a student, he treated me as a colleague when he had no business doing so. That, as much as anything, drove me to maturity, professionalism and to a level of excellence that I would not have even aspired to without him.”

As an undergraduate, Marler was the only student to serve as editor of The Optimist newspaper and Prickly Pear yearbook. Years later, with Marler as a faculty advisor of both, the flagship student publications became steady winners of juried competition by the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association and the Associated Collegiate Press. Marler’s dream was for the JMC department to earn accreditation by the Accrediting Council for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, which it did in 2001, one of 100 such collegiate JMC programs in the world to be recognized.

“Only two other church-affiliated universities had earned that distinction,” said Bacon, who followed Marler’s large footsteps as department chair. “Every decision he made, every class he crafted, every faculty member he hired was enveloped in that grand vision to make ACU a place where excellent journalism and Christian journalism were understood to be not only possible, but essential.”

Dr. Jessica Smith, associate provost for curriculum and assessment, is one former student who earned her doctorate, returned to JMC to teach, and is building her own legacy on the Hill, thanks to Marler.

“I took three of Charlie’s classes,” Smith said. “Only one was a writing class, so although I’ve felt the bite of some of his famous editing, critical thinking was his legacy to me. His rigorous research requirements prepared me for graduate school — which I pursued after he was the first to tell me that I might find academic life satisfying.

“The idea that he planted is one of the reasons I’m where I am today: I’ve been a student, editor of The Optimist, professor and administrator at ACU,” she said.

At May Commencement in 1987, Dr. Charlie Marler was named ACU’s Outstanding Teacher of the Year.

Marler was a visiting lecturer or journalist-in-residence for Bethany College (1988), the USIA’s U.S. Speaker Program in Brazil and Argentina (1993), and the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities’ Summer Journalism Institute (1998-2000). He also taught in ACU’s study abroad programs in Switzerland (1995), and in Prague, Poland, and the former East Germany (1996).

Marler’s Horizons magazine, the forerunner of ACU Today, was an early pacesetter for Abilene Christian’s longtime tradition of earning national recognition for excellence in publication design, writing, photography and marketing communications, starting with alumni magazine awards for Horizons, sponsored by Time/Life (1966) and Newsweek (1970).

A master historian, he was editor of “No Ordinary University: The History of a City Set on a Hill,” a 1998 book by Dr. John C. Stevens about their shared alma mater. He was a member of ACU’s Centennial Commission, chaired its Centennial Collection Taskforce (2005-06) and received one of 17 Hashknife Awards in 2006 for “heroic and pioneering contributions to the preservation of archives and artifacts documenting the history of the university.” The last 26 years, he worked daily on updating and expanding the digital ACU AnswerBook, a nearly exhaustive style guide and important historical source for JMC students and the campus.

“The way he taught and shepherded generations of students would have been enough of a gift to the university and each of us who knew him. But Charlie has also kept our history. He has read and interviewed thousands of sources. And … he’s made sure that many of us still here know our story, too.”

“The way he taught and shepherded generations of students would have been enough of a gift to the university and each of us who knew him,” Smith said. “But Charlie has also kept our history. He has read and interviewed thousands of sources. And in tales told over lunches and trips to cemeteries and in 26 editions of the AnswerBook, he’s made sure that many of us still here know our story, too.”

A prolific writer and a researcher of newspapers around the globe, he also edited a 1989 book, “Lone Star Christmas: The Seasonal Editorials of Frank Grimes.” The late Grimes was editor of the Abilene Reporter-News for more than 40 years.

The Charles H. Marler Scholarship was established in 2001 by the Southwestern Journalism Congress, for which he served five terms as president. He held numerous other offices and leadership roles in professional organizations, including president of the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association and Southwestern Education Council for Journalism and Mass Communication. He also was chair of the American Journalism Historians Association board.

In 2003, he was inducted into the TIPA Hall of Fame along with Walter Cronkite and Bill Moyers, joining others including Dan Rather, Bob Schieffer, Scott Pelley, Sam Donaldson and Jim Lehrer, along with President Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife, Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson.

Marler was inducted in 2006 into the ACU Sports Hall of Fame for distinguished lifetime achievement, noting his legendary knowledge of Wildcat sports history and leadership role in establishing a nationally respected athletics media relations office. Marler was press chief for the 1960 U.S. Olympic Trials in women’s track and field, hosted by Abilene Christian at Elmer Gray Stadium. And he penned the name of the Southland Conference, the NCAA league ACU co-founded in 1963 with Arkansas State, Texas-Arlington, Lamar and Trinity.

Marler’s dream for the JMC department was realized in 2001 when ACU became one of the few church-related universities accredited by the Accrediting Council for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

In 1993 he pioneered the creation of ACU’s Gutenberg Award, which annually recognizes the distinguished professional achievements of JMC alumni. Recipients each October at homecoming are presented a wooden scale model of a Gutenberg printing press, made all the more a treasure because Marler assembled them by hand in his home workshop. The honorees — many of them his former students — are among the university’s most noteworthy graduates, including best-selling authors; educators and business leaders; media and entertainment industry standouts; members of the Grand Ole Opry and Gospel Music Hall of Fame; and nominees or winners of Oscars, Emmys, Grammys, Tellys and MTV awards, and the Pulitzer Prize.

He and Peggy were members of University Church of Christ, where he served as an elder for many years.

“Charlie was a unifier, a good friend and an illustration of how one’s personal qualities can improve a group effort,” said former UCC elder Dr. Gary McCaleb, vice president emeritus of the university.

As a fellow elder, McCaleb recalls Marler emphasizing the importance of clear, timely and open communication between themselves and the congregation. He also demonstrated his knowledge of, and respect for those who had preceded him and the decisions they had made. And his skills as a historian improved the relationship between shepherd and flock.

“His insistence on accuracy with regard to minutes kept, and a general reliance on written records rather than risking imprecision of collective memory, made an important difference,” McCaleb said.

Marler’s community service focused on the Boy Scouts of America and as scoutmaster of Abilene’s Troop 201 that met for years in a small hutment on Cedar Crest near campus, developing scores of young men who became Eagle Scouts and leaders in all walks of life. He earned scouting’s Silver Beaver and Faithful Servant awards, and pioneered the Members of Churches of Christ for Scouting and its Servant Leadership Awards and curriculum for scouts and the adults who mentor them.

“In everything he did — whether it was advising and teaching students, leading the department for two decades, shepherding the faculty, his church or a scout troop — he was always a standard-bearer.”

Judge Paul Rotenberry of the 326th District Court in Abilene said there is no telling how many young men were influenced by Charlie’s example and life lessons through the years as a scoutmaster.

“He was an Eagle Scout-producing machine who had boundless energy and grit for camping trips with boys in some of the worst weather conditions imaginable,” Rotenberry said. “Adults and youngsters alike learned from him. Many years ago, I was one of his scouts. I will always be grateful for the way he served as a father figure for me at a formative age. Charlie Marler helped set the trajectory of my life.”

Pybus saw a thread woven into every aspect of Marler’s influence.

“In everything he did — whether it was advising and teaching students, leading the department for two decades, shepherding the faculty, his church or a scout troop — he was always a standard-bearer,” Pybus said. “To Charlie, ‘good enough’ was never good enough, and it indeed never should be.”

“Few men of his stature cast such a long shadow,” Bacon said.

In 2003, Marler was inducted with Walter Cronkite and Bill Moyers to the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association Hall of Fame.

He was preceded in death by his parents, William Owen Marler and Velma Valentine Marler McCabe, and a granddaughter, Callie Faith Marler. Survivors include Peggy of Abilene, Texas, his wife of 67 years; sons and daughters-in-law Dr. David Marler of Easton, Pennsylvania; Todd and Lee Ann (Mills) Marler of Kingwood, Texas; and Scott and Lori (Cain) Marler of Lansing, Kansas; and sisters Doris Waggoner of Wichita, Kansas, and Shirley Buchanan of Tulsa, Oklahoma. His grandchildren include Lindsey Marler of Dublin, Ohio; Ashley and Shane McLaughlin of Chamblee, Georgia; Michael Marler of Kingwood, Texas; Jeremy and Emilie Marler of Kelso, Washington; and Jacob Marler and Crystal Stipe of Sheboygan, Wisconsin. He also has three great-grandchildren: Addelyn Marler, Raegan Marler and Finnigan Marler of Kelso, Wisconsin.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the Charlie and Peggy Marler Endowment for JMC (ACU Box 29132, Abilene, Texas 79699-9132 or bit.ly/CharlieMarler).

A condition called hemifacial microsomia, caused by a blood clot before he was born, kept parts of his face from developing properly. He was legally blind and deaf. He had a cochlear implant attached to his skull. He could be difficult to understand. You noticed these things about him right away.

But eventually you stopped noticing …  because you saw him all the time.

John Hayes stands with his bike.

John was a Journeyman. That’s what we call the adult helpers who corral the kids in Journeyland, our ministry for elementary age children at the Memorial Road Church of Christ. I’ve served as a Journeyman in six-week increments. It’s tiring.

John did it constantly, even when the kids asked brutally honest questions about his condition. He also helped out in the audio/visual booth in the auditorium. (Yes, the A/V booth.)

He rode his bike everywhere, or he walked at a quick pace. He always seemed to be in a hurry.

In recent weeks we’ve covered so much tragedy — from mass shootings in Uvalde and Tulsa to the war in Ukraine. It would be easy to overlook John’s tragedy.

On June 6, while crossing the street to get to a doctor’s appointment, John was struck by a minivan and died. He was 61.

He had been hit by cars at least three times before. People just didn’t seem to see him.

I regret that I didn’t know him better. I’m thankful for my brothers in Christ who did, including Nathan Ison. Nathan and his wife, former Christian Chronicle digital news editor Chellie Ison, co-direct our church’s Celebrate Recovery program. Nathan was John’s sponsor.

“His entire life seemed to be defined by tragedy,” Nathan said of his friend. John’s father served in the military and died when John was a year old. John endured abuse from his mother and stepfather. Social services removed his sisters from their home.

As a teen John endured multiple surgeries and went months without seeing or hearing from his parents as he recovered. His attempts to cope with the trauma led to addictions.

Nathan could say a lot more about John’s tragic circumstances,“but I want you to know about John’s courage,” he said. Friends guided John to the church. He gave his life to Christ, “even though the concept of God wanting to be his Father was incredibly difficult for him to accept.” After his conversion, “John had the courage to reach out for help when he was hurting, struggling or feeling overwhelmed, which, for the trauma he had endured, was often daily or weekly.”

Tim Herbel was a brother in Christ who became like a flesh-and-blood brother to John. Tim is executive director of Not Your Average Joe, a nonprofit coffee shop that employs people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. John worked there and became known as a “kitchen ninja.” He used the skills he earned in college to set up the point of sale systems for the business. He set prices and coordinated inventory.

John was fiercely independent and extremely funny, Tim said. He also was “the best worshiper on the planet.”

John Hayes works at Not Your Average Joe in Oklahoma City, which was featured in December of 2021 by The Curbside Chronicle. Hayes’ name tag read “Not Your Average John.” He died in an auto-pedestrian accident June 6.

“Because he was deaf, John could not sing in tune,” Tim said, “but his was the most beautiful worship I’ve ever heard. He came to the cross broken and found healing.”

John had plenty of reasons to be mad at the world. Perhaps he was at times. As I ponder this latest wave of insanity, I try to comprehend the darkness, the evil that drives people as young as 18 to commit the all-too-common unthinkable.

John didn’t let that darkness define him. I appreciate these words from Dan Lovejoy, another of his friends from the recovery ministry:

“John had a chosen family — that he chose, that chose him. He was loved and he loved. John was rescued from hell on earth by that family and by the church — the embassy of heaven. And once he was rescued, he joined the work — every work he could. He quickly became a rescuer.”

In so many ways, John didn’t “conform to the pattern of this world,” as the apostle Paul wrote in Romans 12. He lived a life of sacrifice and service — “true and proper worship.”

John Hayes was different.

ERIK TRYGGESTAD is president and CEO of The Christian Chronicle. Contact erik@christianchronicle.org, and follow him on Twitter @eriktryggestad.

A celebration of life for John Hayes begins at 10 a.m. Central on June 18 at the Memorial Road Church of Christ in Oklahoma City. Memorial gifts may be made to Not Your Average Joe, a 501(c)3, at 509 Wilkinson Dr., Moore, OK 73160 or to the Memorial Road chapter of Celebrate Recovery, 2221 E Memorial Rd., Edmond, OK 73103. Please note “John Hayes” on contributions.

This past Saturday, March 12, Eugene Lawton, longtime minister for the Newark congregation, picked up McClendon, his partner in the Gospel, at Newark Liberty International Airport. Lawton dropped off McClendon at his hotel and headed to the church building. As Lawton, 85, walked up the building’s steps, he suffered a fatal heart attack, church leaders said.

Hours after the minister’s passing, Newark church leaders met and decided to go forward with the four-day workshop, “Doing Evangelism as You Go,” which began Sunday morning during the Bible study hour.

Newark church leaders said they plan to have “a glorious celebration” for Lawton at a date in the future, but this week the focus is on the workshop that concludes Wednesday.

“We were talking evangelism as we came from the airport,” McClendon told those gathered on Sunday. “Brother Lawton would say we should continue to save souls and keep souls saved. Saving souls is our business, Luke 19:10. We need to do this in honor of Brother Lawton.”

“He is not here in person, but he is here in spirit,” said McClendon, who serves as senior minister and an elder of the Northside Church of Christ in Jacksonville. “I believe he would want us to use this as an opportunity to save more souls.”

Moreover, Lawton would want the church to be unified, McClendon told the audience.

“He would want us to be together because we are well aware of the devil and how the devil can get among us.  … He would want us to love one another. We want to build on the foundation that Dr. Lawton has laid.”

During the Sunday morning Bible class, which also was streamed on YouTube, McClendon said Lawton had inspired men all over the brotherhood.

“But we are not here because of brother Lawton,” he reminded the audience.  “We are here because of Jesus Christ.”

Citing Romans 15:1-7, he told them, “Members must learn to receive one another…We got to be patient with one another If we are going to be of one mind in saving souls.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4xlGNbgxE8

Newark church member Michael Graves was one of several who prayed before the lesson began.

“We are joyful that brother Lawton ran his race and finished his course,” Graves said. “Lord, we are thankful for this man who touched many lives. Help us to heal our hearts. We don’t grieve without hope. Brother Lawton has earned his mansion, robe and crown.”

Fellow church member Weston Paton prayed for the Spirit “to carry on this great work.”

“Lord, have mercy upon us. We have learned so much from this hard-fighting soldier. We stand in the unity of one Lord, on faith and one baptism. Let his life be an example to us.”

“We mourn the loss of a great soldier,” Paton said. “Lord, have mercy upon us. We have learned so much from this hard-fighting soldier. We stand in the unity of one Lord, on faith and one baptism. Let his life be an example to us.”

During his sermon, McClendon said the day brought mixed emotions, both sad and joyful.

“I have been coming here since 1978,” the late minister’s friend said. “Brother Lawton wanted souls to be saved. This workshop is done in his honor. Brother Lawton spent his whole life working to get people to be baptized.”

Lawton had conducted his final service at Newark on March 10 at a Thursday-night Bible study.  Seated in his large, high-back chair in the pulpit, he opened his Bible and talked on topics ranging from presidential politics to the war in the Ukraine.

“You don’t have to worry about who is in 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.,”  Lawton said.

“I am going to my grave believing that there is power in prayer. How many of us are praying about the situation in Ukraine,” Lawton said, quoting Psalms 37:25. “I was young but now I am old but I have never seen the righteous forsaken.”

When Lawton extended the invitation that evening for baptism and restoration, he knew those who responded by their names. Then before the closing prayer, his final words to his congregation encouraged them to attend the workshop and to learn how to save souls.

In 2019, the late Eugene Lawton, minister for the Newark Church of Christ in New Jersey, delivers a keynote at Freed-Hardeman University in Henderson, Tenn.

“You come, and bring somebody with you,” Lawton told them. “This is a soul-winning event. If you don’t know how to win souls for Christ, this is your opportunity to do so.”

HAMIL R. HARRIS is a Christian Chronicle correspondent and a veteran journalist who spent two decades with the Washington Post. He preaches regularly for the Glenarden Church of Christ in Maryland.

Eugene Lawton

“He is now ‘sounding his trumpet’ in his new heavenly home,” members of the Newark Church of Christ in New Jersey, where Lawton served for over a half-century, posted on the congregation’s website.

Lawton, known for his honest, “no-nonsense” approach to preaching, was fond of the trumpet analogy for proclaiming the Gospel — a term echoed in Scripture throughout the Old and New Testaments. On Saturday the phrase appeared repeatedly on social media as friends shared their memories of Lawton.

“’Let me sound my trumpet’ are the words that resound in my head from a little girl to a woman of God!” said Felicea Robinson. Lawton was “not just a soldier of the cross, but a man of God who was not afraid to tell it like it is and encouraged all to do the same.”

A native of St. Petersburg, Fla., Lawton was baptized by the late S.J. Dudley and studied at Southwestern Christian College in Terrell, Texas, the only historically Black Christian college associated with Churches of Christ. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Pepperdine University in California and a doctorate in ministry from Trinity Seminary in Indiana.

A young Eugene Lawton, right, shakes hands with Nokomis Yeldell, Yeldell, who preached for the Norris Road Church of Christ in Memphis, Tenn., died in 2007 after 50-plus years of ministry,

He ministered for the East 7^th Street Church of Christ in Oklahoma City from 1959 to 1961 before moving to the Newark congregation. He has served in numerous capacities for Southwestern Christian, including a two-year stint as academic dean. He was a regular speaker at the National Lectureship, an annual gathering of predominantly Black Churches of Christ, in addition to youth conferences and Gospel meetings in locales across the U.S., the Caribbean and Africa.

Eugene Lawton celebrates his 85th birthday.

On Jan. 28, his 85^th birthday, Lawton posted to Facebook: “After all that I have been through, I thank God for his majestic grace and his marvelous goodness to wake me up this morning.

“I am still clothed in my right mind, got a roof over my head, got food on my table, got the activity of my limbs and still preaching every Sunday — oh praise his holy name.”

As recently as March 2, Lawton was on social media promoting an upcoming Church Growth Seminar hosted by the Newark congregation and featuring Charlie McClendon, minister for the Northside Church of Christ in Jacksonville, Fla. The theme: “No Pandemic Can Lockdown My Soul!”

Funeral arrangements are pending. Check back for updates.

“I’m truly thrilled for Daddy to receive his heavenly reward.”

“Daddy passed,” Rhonda Zorn Fernandez, a member of the Concord Street Church of Christ in Orlando, Fla., said in a text message. “Pray for us.

“I’m truly thrilled for Daddy to receive his heavenly reward,” she added. “I knew I would feel broken. I just did not know I would feel shattered.”

Zorn, famous in Churches of Christ for his bright red blazer, died peacefully at the Orlando-area home where he lived with Fernandez and his son-in-law, Halo Fernandez.

Jack and Frances Zorn pose at an annual convention of Lads to Leaders in Atlanta.

Roy Johnson, executive director of Lads to Leaders and brother of Zorn’s late wife, Frances Zorn, said the family and the Lads to Leaders staff “are heartbroken at the loss but know what a legacy his life has been in the lives of thousands upon thousands of Christians!”

From its humble start, Lads to Leaders/Leaderettes Inc., based in Montgomery, Ala., now hosts eight annual regional conventions in the U.S. and four in other countries.

Through the program, young members of Churches of Christ memorize Scripture, practice song leading and participate in other Bible-based activities.

“The church has lost a giant today.”

Over the past half-century, at least a quarter-million children, parents, ministers and church leaders have participated in the program, according to Johnson.

“Dr. Zorn mentored so many young men and women in his life and even managed to convert some caregivers to the Lord while he was incapacitated,” Johnson said. “The church has lost a giant today.”

Jack Zorn, Roy Johnson and Frances Zorn are shown in an undated photo provided by Lads to Leaders.

Baptized at 17

Born in Geneva County, Ala., on Nov. 8, 1934, Zorn was raised on a sharecropper’s farm.

His father suffered from alcoholism, and his mother struggled to instill Christian values in the family. In 1951, at age 17, Zorn was baptized at a gospel meeting held by Bill Hatcher.

He later attended Alabama Christian College (now Faulkner University) in Montgomery, where he met fellow student Frances Johnson. Zorn lost his wife of 61 years in 2017, when she died at age 80.

Besides his bachelor’s degree from Faulkner, Zorn earned a master’s from Harding School of Theology and a doctorate of religious education from the International Bible Institute and Seminary.

After graduating from college, Jack Zorn preached full time in four states and did mission work. While preaching in Warner Robins, Ga., he founded Lads to Leaders in 1968. The youths he helped train for the program gave their first public speeches on Sunday morning, Jan. 5, 1969.

Frances Zorn helped train the first Leaderettes — participants in a version of the program for young women.

Jack and Frances Zorn, with daughters Resa, Rhonda and Sonya.

“When Jack decided to give up preaching and teaching to devote his life to spreading Lads to Leaders, he had no funding,” Roy Johnson said in 2017. “Frances took on three jobs — working days, nights, and weekends — to provide enough money to feed the family and travel money for Jack to visit churches and hold workshops across the nation.

“Without this awesome sacrifice, there would be no Lads to Leaders today.”

After retiring from the ministry for health reasons, the Zorns settled in Sylacauga, Ala. They were active in the Hollins Church of Christ for many years. The Christian Chronicle featured the family in 2016 in a series on Christian caregivers. In that article, Rhonda Fernandez discussed the challenges of caring for aging parents.

Jack and Frances Zorn, then married for 58 years, wear matching T-shirts as they pose for a photo at their home in Sylacauga, Ala., in 2015.

Earlier this year, Faulkner, which is associated with Churches of Christ, honored Jack Zorn as its Alumnus of the Year. Zorn, who served on the university’s board of directors, was honored for his “lifetime of service dedicated to the Lord’s work, his ingenuity and his love for young people.”

In 2017, Harding University in Searcy, Ark., presented Zorn with an honorary Doctor of Laws for his contributions to the development of Christian leaders through his groundbreaking work with Lads to Leaders and Leaderettes.

Survivors include two other daughters, Resa Byrd and Sonya King; two sisters, Ina Griffith and Betty Brown; a brother, Buddy Pryor; five granddaughters; 10 great-grandchildren; and lots of nieces and nephews. Zorn was preceded in death by his twin sister, Chasie Walker.

Funeral services will be at 2:30 p.m. Aug. 28 at the University Church of Christ in Montgomery, with visitation beforehand starting at 12:30 p.m.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Lads to Leaders’ Zorn Memorial Fund.

BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. Reach him at bobby.ross@christianchronicle.org.

Three-year-old Joshua Johnson of the Deerfoot Church of Christ in Birmingham, Ala., leads a song earlier this year at the Lads to Leaders convention in Little Rock, Ark. His red blazer was a gift from Lads to Leaders founder Jack Zorn, his late wife, Frances, and their daughter, Rhonda Zorn Fernandez, lifelong friends of Joshua’s parents. COVID-19 canceled the 2020 Lads to Leaders and Leadership Training for Christ conventions, which draw thousands of participants from Churches of Christ. This year some churches hosted mini-conventions at their buildings. A few of the larger conventions resumed with reduced attendance, social distancing and the occasional superhero mask.

Emch, 68, worked with a Church of Christ in Rostov-on-Don, a port city on the Sea of Azov in southwestern Russia. She recently relocated to Dallas, where she planned to continue serving the Prestoncrest Church of Christ as the congregation’s librarian. Days before her death she had served as a volunteer for the church’s Vacation Bible School, preaching minister Gordon Dabbs told The Christian Chronicle.

Eileen Emch visits Mount Ararat in Turkey in 2019.

In a June 4 social media post, Emch wrote, “I’ve been in Russia 22-plus years, including the weird and wacky COVID year. My Prestoncrest ‘missions heroes’ have nudged me to consider relocating and I agree. This seems like the right time to move back. Lots of thoughts, emotions and memories.”

This is a developing story. Check back for additional details.

Fern Hill

The Riverhead, N.Y.-based ministry, supported by Churches of Christ, serves abused and neglected children and is named after one of the Hills’ children, Timothy, who died after a tragic accident at age 13.

 Fern Hill was “a mentor and friend to thousands and a beacon of love and kindness,” her obituary reads.

One of those thousands is David Shannon, president of Freed-Hardeman University in Henderson, Tenn. Here, Shannon shares his memories of “Aunt Fern.”

****

Everyone who knew Fern has stories about her that sound fictional unless you knew her.

David Shannon, 16th president of Freed-Hardeman University in Henderson, Tenn.

She was Aunt Fern to me and my sister, Rebecca. I was born in Riverhead. We lived on Wildwood Trail a few houses down from her and Uncle Jerry. I have been held and nurtured by this woman longer than any — other than my mother and sister. I have lived in their home.

I remember asking my mother to explain how the Hills were my uncle and aunt. Boy, was I surprised to learn that we weren’t related.

But Fern would be the first to say we are both family of the King.

The combination of the names Jerry and Fern impacts our world like Aquila and Priscilla or even Paul and Barnabas. They powerfully impacted the Lord’s church — even from their college days when they taught a Sunday school class in their car because the church building didn’t have a classroom. They served the Graymere Church of Christ in Columbia, Tenn., where my parents first met them and decided to move to Long Island and serve as vocational missionaries.

Their son Timothy passed at 13 years of age. I remember my mother answering the phone and in stunned silence. She sat on a chair and cried. I had never seen my mother cry before. He was a great young man whose good works still follow him.

Another of their sons, Tom, was my first friend. He passed away recently, and his last season of life was filled with peace that no doubt was an answer to thousands of Fern’s prayers.

Prayers and hospitality

I remember Aunt Fern’s prayer life. She has written a book about God’s work in prayers, “Gifts from Glory.” Being a witness to a few of these stories is amazing.

The combination of the names Jerry and Fern impacts our world like Aquila and Priscilla or even Paul and Barnabas.

While Tracie and I worked for the Timothy Hill ranch I would snoop around a large, beautiful, abandoned house next to the ranch. Fern began to pray for God to provide this house to the ranch. She learned that the owner was willing to sell it. She presented the request to the board of directors of the ranch, but it was denied.

She believed that the board didn’t understand all the good that could come from this facility, but she knew the Lord did. So she prayed for God to simply give them the house. A few days later a stranger walked into Uncle Jerry’s office, laid the paperwork for the house on his desk, and asked if he would accept this house as a gift. It was the first time they had talked.

(Jerry and Fern Hill discuss thankfulness in a “fireside chat” in a November 2020 video. Fern discusses one of her favorite Bible passages, Philippians 4:6-7, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”)

This home became the hospitality house where the Hills lived and hosted thousands of guests. There is no way to count the number of times Fern has washed sheets, folded towels, prepared breakfast.

Youths gather during a retreat at Timothy Hill Ranch.

But her guests experienced so much more. They enjoyed a chapter out of the living Word, a home-cooked breakfast, a few of Jerry’s jokes and a song. It might be “Welcome to the Family.” “Bless be the Tie” or “Til We Meet Again.” And they could sing.

Focused and sporadic, fun and serious

Aunt Fern had a way of bringing the Lord into situations without it seeming like it was her idea. She could pick up hitchhikers and, within a few miles, all would be singing “Amazing Grace.”

She connected with those who were 80 and lived their whole life as faithful Christians and the next hour she could comfortably talk to an addict who had no place to stay.

Aunt Fern was dignified and beautiful. She was focused and sporadic. She was fun and serious. She had faith that moved mountains. To be loved by her was one of the great gifts from above.

Once, while at a conference, our toddler fell in a large hotel pool in the courtyard. Fern, fully clothed for the conference, jumped in to rescue him. She exited with grace as if it were no big deal to save a baby or swim in a long skirt. (How many hundreds of miles did she swim across the lake at Wildwood?)

Aunt Fern was dignified and beautiful. She was focused and sporadic. She was fun and serious. She had faith that moved mountains.

She and Uncle Jerry lived a healthy life. For decades she ate Cambridge bars and shakes. In a kidding way I said to her one morning, “Aunt Fern, you know it doesn’t matter how many Cambridge bars you eat, you are still going to die one day.”

She smiled that confident smile she would flash when she knew she had checkmate.

“No, I am going to live forever,” she said. “I’m the daughter of the King.”

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Howard and Dorothy King

75 years

Howard and Dorothy King

Howard and Dorothy (Sarchet) King are celebrating their 75th wedding anniversary. They were married May 12, 1946, in Agra, Kan., after Howard had completed his service with the Navy during World War II.  

Howard attended Fort Hays State College and began teaching industrial arts in Dighton, Kan., and later moved to Scott City, Kan., where he taught for more than 25 years. He retired from teaching and purchased King’s Aluminum and Glass, which they owned for 10 years. He was also a rural mail route deliverer. He loves to do woodworking, and has continued making segmented bowls as his hobby.  

Dorothy was a busy mother, volunteering for leadership roles in Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts, Welcome Wagon, Pink Lady and teaching Bible classes. She was also a seamstress extraordinaire. She made all the clothes for her family and also costumes for many high school musicals.  

They have seven children: Ken, Jim, Ron, Carmen, Karen, Carla and Jeff.  They also have 12 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren. 

They have been members of the Church of Christ in Scott City for 70 years, where Howard served as an elder. They are a wonderful example of a loving, Christian couple.

Memorials

Samuel ‘Ray’ Frizzell, Jr. 

1929-2021

Ray was a dedicated, Christian servant who was in his 75th year of preaching the gospel of Christ. At the time of his death, he was in his 28th year of preaching for the Shackle Island Church of Christ in Tennessee. Ray passed away on April 8, 2021, at the age of 92. 

Kenneth Joines

1935-2021

Kenneth Joines

Kenneth Joines was born Dec. 27, 1935, near Belton, Ky., to Guy and Truly McElwain Joines. He grew up there, graduating from Hughes-Kirkpatrick High School. 

In his senior year, he met Janrose Forgy, and they married the following December while he was a student at David Lipscomb College. It was during the following year, while still 18 years of age, that he answered the call to become the full-time preacher for the church at Butte, Mont. 

He later served churches in Claremore, Okla.; Augusta, Kan.; Sebring, Fla.; Elizabethtown, Ky.; Merkel, Texas; Greenville, Ky.; Hixson, Tenn.; and the Whitehaven Church of Christ in Memphis, Tenn., which later relocated and became the Goodman Oaks Church of Christ in Southaven, Miss. 

He preached for Goodman Oaks for 29 years. During his ministry, Goodman Oaks grew to become the largest congregation of Churches of Christ in Mississippi. Following retirement in 2004, he remained at Goodman Oaks while doing interim work for the Woodland Hills Church of Christ in Memphis, twice in Sebring, Fla., and twice in Lake Placid, Fla., as well as preaching by appointment in states from Florida to Alaska and from Texas to West Virginia. 

In addition to studying at Lipscomb, he took additional training at Central Christian College (now Oklahoma Christian University), Abilene Christian University, and Murray State University. 

An avid big-game hunter, he enjoyed numerous trips to Colorado and Wyoming where he took bull elk and antelope as well as numerous mule deer. He was commissioned a Kentucky Colonel by Governor Louie Nunn and served two terms as president of the Whitehaven Civitan Club. For several years he served the Shelby County Juvenile Court as Auxiliary Probation Officer, working with numerous young men in rehabilitation.

In 2012, his first wife, Jan, died of pulmonary fibrosis. Two years later he married Sue Noto, a member at Goodman Oaks. Many times he observed, “It is almost unbelievable that God gave me two of the very best women to walk and work beside me. I am blessed and have never been happier.” Ken died April 2, 2021.

Ken was preceded in death by his parents and by his older brother Virgil, sister Marjorie Rhoads, and son-in-law Robin Enochs.

He is survived by his wife of six years, Sue; son Mike of Seattle; daughters Laura of Denver, Pam (Steve) Peraza of Abilene, Texas, and Jennifer Enochs of Tupelo, Miss.; as well as stepsons Joseph (Bethany) Noto of Bono, Ark., and Matthew (Christina) Noto of Olive Branch Miss. He is also survived by his sister Shirley (Eugene) McPherson of Greenville, Ky., and  brother Jimmy (Mary) of Snellville, Ga., as well as four granddaughters, one grandson and two great-grandchildren. 

Barbara Oteka Kee

1930-2021

Barbara Oteka Kee

Barbara Oteka Kee, 91, passed away April 28, 2021, in Wichita Falls, Texas.

Barbara was born April 25, 1930, in Bartlesville, Okla., to Charley Lindsey and Lola McFarland. She attended Florida Christian College, Central Christian College (now Oklahoma Christian University) and Harding College (now University), where she met her husband Robert Windle Kee. The couple married June 6, 1953, in Tulsa, Okla., at the Eastside Church of Christ.

The couple began planting churches in the Northeast, including Levittown, Penn., Salisbury, Md., and Collinsville, Ill. They then spent 20 years as missionaries in Cameroon, West Africa. They later worked in Belize. 

The couple also lived in Onalaska, Texas, until they retired to Wichita Falls. Throughout Barbara’s life, her genuine love for literally everyone she met endeared her to many and led her on countless unscripted adventures!

Barbara was preceded in death by her parents and her sister Lee Myers.

Barbara is survived by her husband of 67 years, Windle; her two sons Carl Kee and wife Pat of Lubbock, Texas, and Paul Kee and wife Janet of Cameroon; her daughter Alicejoy Taylor and Joe of Wichita Falls; a brother Bud McFarland and Sarah, of Edmond, Okla.; five grandchildren, six great-grandchildren, as well as many beloved nieces and nephews; and a large spiritual family around the world.

Memorials in Barbara’s name may be made to the Cameroon Mission Fund through the Faith Village Church of Christ, 4100 McNiel Ave, Wichita Falls, TX 76308.

Ken Vanderpool

1936-2021

Dr. Kenneth Gene Vanderpool

Dr. Kenneth Gene Vanderpool died Thursday, April 8, 2021, at 84 years of age from complications of advanced Alzheimer’s. 

Ken was born Sept. 3, 1936, in Comanche, Okla., in a two-room shack. He was named after two of his mother’s favorite singing cowboys: Kenneth Maynard and Gene Autry. Ken grew up dirt poor but became a self-made man, accomplished in education, church ministry, athletics, and music.  

Ken graduated from Addington High School in Oklahoma and earned bachelor’s degrees in physical education and Bible from Harding College in Searcy, Ark. He earned his M.Ed. and Ed.D. in health and physical education from Temple University in Philadelphia. 

While at Harding, he met the love of his life, Lucia DuBois, while working in Patti Cobb Cafeteria. Before either one completed school, they married at the College Church of Christ in Searcy on May 26, 1957. 

Ken had 60 years of higher education teaching in the areas of exercise kinesiology, physiology, and anatomy and physiology. Most recently, he retired from Southwest Tennessee Community College in Memphis, Tenn. He also taught at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J.; Northeastern Christian Junior College in Villanova, Pa.; Northeastern University in Boston; Navajo Community College in Tsaile, Ariz.; Shelby State Community College in Memphis; and Delta State University in Cleveland, Miss. 

Ken was preceded in death by his wife, Lucia DuBois Vanderpool, daughter Melanie Denise Vanderpool Jerden, grandson James Gilbert Hodge, and nephew Mark Rockford LaMarr; his parents, Jesse James Vanderpool and Nancy Adelaide Hatfield; sister Jessie Fay Vanderpool, and half-brother Billy Ray “Bill” Hibbert. 

He is survived by his children 

Suzanne Vanderpool Hodge (Wally), Kenneth Gene Vanderpool, Jr. (Jo Ann), and Nancy Kathleen Vanderpool Manning. Ken is also survived by seven grandchildren plus a large number of nieces, nephews, cousins, and in-laws. 

Family and friends gathered Saturday, May 1, for a memorial service at Memphis Funeral Home and Memorial Gardens where they paid tribute to an amazing father, husband, brother, uncle, and Christian man. You may read his full obituary on their website.

With Appreciation

The Christian Chronicle appreciates gifts received in honor of Alan Phillips and Glen and Lilla Boss and in memory of Kenton Harvey, Jason McDonald, Sam Volpe, Mary Washam, Bob and Ava Wimbish, and Sylvia Matlin.

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Larry and Tricky Arnold

Larry and Tricky Arnold

69 years

The Arnolds have seven children, five of whom are over 60.

Larry preaches for the New Lexington Church of Christ in Ohio.

Memorials

Charles Baggett

1939-2021

Charles Baggett

Dr. Charles Edmond Baggett, 81, passed away on March 12, 2021, at his home in Hartselle, Ala., with his family by his side.

Charles was born Sept. 11, 1939, to David Allen and Eva Lee (Shaw) Baggett in Hartselle. He knew he was called to preach when he did his first sermon at the age of 11. At 16, he had his own congregation. He graduated from Morgan County High School in 1957. 

Charles preached the gospel for 69 years. He began working in jail/prison ministry in 1984. He was chaplain at Limestone Correctional in Alabama for 22 years. In 2002, Charles was recognized as Chaplain of the Year. After his retirement, he volunteered as chaplain at the Decatur Work Release in Alabama. He also started the Freedom Through Truth program and helped establish Project Rescue in Priceville, Ala. In 2015, Charles and his wife, Martha, were awarded honorary doctorates from Heritage Christian University in Florence, Ala. 

Charles is survived by his wife, Martha (Earwood) Baggett, and his sister, Ann Feller. His six children are Terri (Keith) Rigoni, Donna (Johnny) Hope, William Alan (Lisa) Baggett, Alan (Lori) Parker, Sherie (David) Miljanich, and Maria (Steve) Hicks. He is also survived by 12 grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren.

Charles’ memorial service was held on Saturday, March 20, at Beltline Church of Christ in Decatur, Ala., where he was a longtime member. The family requests donations be made to Project Rescue, Heritage Christian University or Hospice of the Valley. 

Richard Johnson Jr.

1925-2021

Richard Johnson Jr

Richard Allison “Coach” Johnson Jr., 95, of Searcy, Ark., passed away from natural causes, old age and a worn-out body on Feb. 17, 2021. 

Coach was born Feb. 17, 1925, in Nashville, Tenn., to Richard and Gladys Johnson. He was a veteran of World War II, serving in the U.S. Army while stationed in New Guinea and the South Pacific. 

Coach was outstanding in football, basketball, baseball and track and was a Golden Glove Mid-South boxing champion while attending Whitehaven High School in Memphis, Tenn.

He attended Harding College (now University) in Searcy and served as an assistant coach for Harding’s first football team in 1959. After graduation, he and his family moved to Georgia, where he coached high school football, girls’ basketball and baseball. In 1966 Coach Johnson’s Dykes High School Colts won the AAA Georgia High School State Championship. He was voted Georgia High School Coach of the Year. 

In 1969 he returned to his alma mater, where he was a teacher, offensive line coach and head baseball coach for 20 years. After a career 289 wins at Harding, a flagpole was erected in his honor at Jerry Moore Field. A bronze plaque in the grandstands, presented by chancellor emeritus Clifton L. Ganus Jr. on April 6, 2019, reads: “His records are many; his influence on the lives of young men is immeasurable.”

During his time at Harding — as a student and as a coach — he preached for several small Churches of Christ in rural Arkansas. He served for 15 years as an elder of the Downtown Church of Christ in Searcy. His wife, Joyce, was secretary for several Harding administrators. Coach and “Mrs. J,” as she was known, were members of the West Side Church of Christ in Searcy for more than 15 years until his death.

In addition to his wife of 73 years and four months, Coach is survived by his son, Bill Johnson (Betty) of Searcy; son-in-law Gregg Ratliff (Janet) of St. Louis, Mo.; four grandchildren; and 10 great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by daughter Nancy Johnson Ratliff and grandson Brian Luke Johnson.

William E. Jones Sr.

1930-2021

William Jones Sr.

Dr. William E. Jones Sr., 90, evangelist, music minister and father transitioned to Glory on Jan. 9, 2021. 

Born in Birdsong, Ark., to Lewis and Osilene Jones, he became a native of Chicago. Encouraged by a singing father and praying mother, at 15 William was baptized at Michigan Avenue Church of Christ in Chicago. 

Because of his talent for singing, Jones discontinued formal education to travel the brotherhood. His ministry began at the Michigan Avenue congregation under the late evangelist Levi Kennedy, who recommended Jones to the late evangelist G.P. Holt as a prospective song leader. During those years, Jones led music for Jimmy Steward, Russell Moore, W.D. Booker and notable gospel preachers. Those experiences brought foundational teaching, music and preaching preparation and cherished friendships. 

When young William returned to Chicago, he and his father organized the Christian Stars Chorus at Old Maypole Church of Christ. Jones also sang with the Rising Sons Quartet, a trailblazing a cappella group known for motivating congregations. 

Jones married Viola French, the grand soprano. They were blessed with four children. Jones continued preaching the gospel and singing. Kennedy encouraged him to assist another preacher, Norris Foulkes, so the Jones family traveled each week to the Robbins, Ill., congregation. 

Known as a “singing preacher,” Jones followed his passion: to be a servant minister of the 87th St. Church of Christ (formerly Miller/Maxwell Street). During his 38-year ministry, he organized and directed the Campaign for Christ, a citywide gospel meeting with members of Churches of Christ across the Chicago area and surrounding states in 2015. Jones received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Metropolitan Christian University in Louisville, Ky.

Viola Jones, his wife of 63 years, labored beside him until her death. Jones retired from preaching in 2014 due to health problems, but his ministry continued: calling on members, studying his Bible, watching cowboy shows and singing with his children. 

He is remembered by children Juanita Lee (Willie) of South Orange, N.J.; Deborah Walker (Gerald) of Robbins, Ill.; William Eddie Jones Jr. (Deborah) of Olympia Fields, Ill.; and John Jones (Sharon) of Troy, Ohio; eight grandchildren; and five great grandchildren. 

He is mourned by his 87th Street church family, friends and church members throughout the country.

Jane Johnson Waites

1934-2021

Jane Johnson Waites

Born in Franklin, Tennessee, Jane grew up on Maple Lawn Farm, graduated from Franklin High School and attended Agnes Scott College, where she met and later married Georgia Tech student, Bill Waites who. He, along with her parents her and brother Dob, preceded her in death. 

Her five children “rise up and call her blessed”: LeaAnne (Kevin) Hammond, Mat (Dani) Waites, Dob (Korky) Waites, Ben (Wendy) Waites, and Emily (Mike) Gifford. Other survivors include one sister Anne (Daniel) Ridinger, twelve grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren, two nieces, and two nephews.  

In August 1946 Jane was baptized in a cow trough because the creek was dry. She spent the rest of her life serving the Lord. Jane worked beside her late husband Bill, a deacon and later an elder of the Druid Hills Church of Christ. She taught Bible classes and used her talents to serve the Lord. She was anxious to share whatever she had — flowers from her garden, food from her kitchen, her car to drive others to Bible class or doctor appointments, cards to cheer and encourage, her phone to check on the sick, and even her beach house or a spare room in her home.   She performed countless loving deeds for others, especially widows, the lonely, the less fortunate, and those recovering from substance abuse. 

She organized poinsettia sales to support Rainbow Omega, an Alabama faith-based nonprofit that provides vocational and residential programs to adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Always focused on helping others, Jane taught at Little Dears in Alpharetta and first grade at the Smyrna campus of Greater Atlanta Christian School. She was a loyal supporter of Christian education all over the world and participated in overseas mission trips.

Truly Jane devoted her time, talents, and material goods in service to God, family and an untold number of others. She did not grow weary in well-doing.

C. Bruce White

1939-2021

C. Bruce White

Dr. C. Bruce White, former minister for the Madison Church of Christ, passed away March 10, 2021. He served as pulpit minister for the Tennessee congregation from 2001 to 2004 and was an associate minister from 1979-1984 when Ira North served as pulpit minister.

Dr. White was born in Pulaski, Tenn., and was reared in Birmingham, Ala. He was preceded in death by his wife, Judy White, and daughter Terri Parrish. 

He is survived by his son, Michael White, brother Dwayne White, grandchildren Hunter White, Bailey White, and Landon Parrish and great-grandchildren Magnolia and Mabel Parrish. 

Dr. White taught Bible and psychology at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tenn., from 1979 to 1985. He taught counseling for ministers at Southern Christian University in Montgomery, Ala., from 1991 to 1993. He was a minister for Churches of Christ for 54 years and taught Bible classes at the Madison church into his 80s.

He began his preaching career after spending two years at Auburn University in Alabama, where he played baseball. He transferred to Lipscomb as a junior to study ministry and played one year of baseball there. It was Coach Ken Dugan’s first year as coach there.

Dr. White preached for churches in Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Arkansas on a full-time basis. He preached at gospel meetings in 22 states and three foreign countries. He spoke on the campuses of almost every college and university associated with Churches of Christ as well as at 18 state university campuses.

He received his education at Auburn, Lipscomb, Harding School of Theology, the University of Oklahoma and the World-Wide Bible Institute. All totaled, he had a bachelor’s, three master’s degrees, and Doctor of Divinity and Doctor of Ministry. He authored two books, numerous tracts and articles for journals, papers and periodicals. He had a part in three different TV programs and five radio programs through the years. 

He was a preacher, educator, counselor, civic leader and a family man. He wore many hats during his career. He was chairman of the board for Childhaven Children’s Home in Cullman, Ala., for many years. He was executive director for the Tennessee Children’s Home in Spring Hill, Tenn., for several years. He had a private counseling practice in several of the locations where he preached and was the first full-time counselor on a church staff for the Churches of Christ, serving in that capacity for the Madison church from 1979 to 1984.

While he had many interests and varied activities, he had the heart of a preacher and always wanted to be known as a preacher. He used to say, “I am not a counselor who preaches some; I am a preacher who counsels some. I always want to be known as a preacher.”

Memorial gifts may be made to Tennessee Children’s Home: www.tennesseechildrenshome.org.

Bill Yasko

1935-2021

William (Bill) Yasko

William Alex (Bill) Yasko was born Dec. 26, 1935, in Chattanooga, Tenn., and died March 29, 2021, in Lawrenceville, Ga. He is survived by his wife of 67 years, Dorothy C. Yasko, two children, three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. 

In 1972, Bill and Dot enrolled in the Sunset School of Preaching (now Sunset International Bible Institute) in Lubbock, Texas. Upon graduation, Bill was asked to be one of the ministers of the Sunset Church of Christ in Lubbock and was also offered an instructor’s position at the school. 

In his life Bill served as an evangelist at The Maricamp Road Church of Christ in Ocala, Fla., and the Westbury Church of Christ in Houston. In 2005 he retired.  

While retired he preached for the Church of Christ in Trinity, Texas; the Oak Grove Church of Christ in Soda, Texas; the Shepherd Church of Christ in Texas; and the Needville Church of Christ in Texas. 

Even after leaving the Sunset institute, Bill and Dot worked tirelessly in recruiting men to come and train to be preachers. 

After retiring from full-time pulpit ministry, Bill worked as a field representative for Sunset and hosted an annual dinner in the Houston area that raised thousands of dollars for the ministry. 

In January 2020, Sunset gave the Grey Eagle Award for an outstanding alumnus to Bill.

“Only God knows how many people were introduced to their Lord because of what God did through Bill for so many years,” administrators at Sunset said in a social media post. “We want to echo the words spoken to Bill, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’”

There will be a memorial later in the summer at the Westbury Church of Christ in Houston. 

In lieu of flowers, Bill requested that contributions be made to Sunset International Bible Institute, 3723 34th Street, Lubbock TX 79410 or online at www.sibi.cc.

Tributes

Naomi Ruth Malick

1938-2021

‘Wife of Noble Character’

Ruth Malick

Ruth Malick was born on Dec. 8, 1938, in Glendale, W.Va., and grew up in nearby Moundsville, W.Va. She was a registered nurse and graduated with her degree from the Ohio Valley General Hospital School of Nursing in 1959. It was at this hospital where she worked for two years before marrying and moving to the Trenton, N.J., area with her husband Gordon. After working at Mercer Hospital and Saint Francis Hospital, she retired to raise her two children. In 1980, she became a library assistant at the College of New Jersey and retired from there in 2000.

Ruth was a loving wife, mother and grandmother. Throughout her life she was known for her compassion to family and all who she became acquainted with. Throughout her life, she provided care and support to elderly neighbors and friends, many times using her nursing background to assist.

During graveside services on Feb. 25, 2021, minister Bruce Wadzeck of the Princeton Church of Christ proclaimed Ruth as the Proverbs 31 “Wife of Noble Character.”

A wife of noble character who can find?

She is worth far more than rubies.

Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value.

She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life.

She selects wood and flax and works with eager hands.

She is like the merchant ships, bringing her food from afar.

She gets up while it is still night: she provides food for her family and portions for her female servants.

She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.

She sets about her work vigorously; her arms strong for her tasks.

She sees that her trading is profitable, and her lamp does not go out at night.

In her hand she holds the distaff and grasps the spindle with her fingers.

She opens her arms to the poor and extends her hands to the needy.

When is snows, she has no fear for her household; for all of them are clothed in scarlet.

She makes coverings for her bed; she is clothed in fine linen and purple.

Her husband is respected at the city gate, where he takes his seat among the elders of the land.

She makes linen garments and sells them, and supplies the merchants with sashes.

She is clothed with strength and dignity, she can laugh at the days to come.

She speaks wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue.

She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.

Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her.

Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.

Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but the woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

Honor her for all that her hands have done, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.

Ruth is survived by her loving husband of 59 years, Gordon Malick; son Thomas Malick of Manassas, Va.; daughter Linda Brooks and husband Glenn of Jackson, N.J.; grandchildren Ashley Gurganus of Las Vegas, Robert Malick of Centerville, Va., and Olivia Malick of Centerville. 

Naomi Ruth was predeceased in life by her parents Donley and Mildred Glover and older siblings Doris and Norman Glover.

Ruth Malick was a longtime member of the Princeton Church of Christ in New Jersey. 

Ron Clayton

1944-2021

Pioneering missionary to India

Ronald Alan Clayton

Ronald Alan Clayton, age 76, of Hamilton, Ala., passed away March 3, 2021, at his residence. He was born in Vernon, Texas, on Aug. 12, 1944 to William Franklin Clayton Jr. and Sara Ellen Cabe Clayton.

The oldest of four children in a military family, he moved frequently and lived on military bases across the U.S. and the Panama Canal Zone. He dedicated his life to the Great Commission and served as a pulpit minister for Churches of Christ for 20 years before moving to India, where he and his wife, Karen, directed India Missions for 42 years. The ministry resulted in millions of baptisms and thousands of church plants. 

A memorial service was held March 8 at the Hamilton Church of Christ with Robert Hall and Ben Renegar officiating. The Hamilton church supports India Missions, and Ron Clayton was an active part of the congregation for 45 years, making regular visits and reports on the work in India.

He was preceded in death by his son, Gregory Allen Clayton, and parents William and Sara Clayton.

He leaves to cherish his memories his wife, Karen Clayton; sons Jeff (Karen) Clayton and Kyle (Madhuri) Clayton; grandchildren Page, Sammy, Brendon, Prema, Grant, Jordan, Preethi and Maddie; great-grandchildren Bo and Silas; sisters Cathy Burgess, Laura Mosier and Pat Jenson; and a host of nieces, nephews and friends.

Memorial gifts may be sent to India Missions, P.O. Box 1448, Hamilton, AL 35570.

With Appreciation: The Christian Chronicle appreciates gifts received in honor of Bill Watkins and in memory of Juli Jackson Beck, David and Virginia Cole, Kenneth Keeler, Mary M. Smith and Dr. Van Tate.

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“With overwhelming sadness, we need to share that the Lord called Josh home today,” Krista Prindle, one of Josh Oakley’s five older sisters, wrote on Facebook. “Thank you for your continued prayers for our family during this unimaginably difficult time.”

Josh was just 23 — the same age as my son Keaton.

In 2016, I was blessed to tell the inspiring story of how Josh, then an 18-year-old Kansas high school baseball player, came to receive a life-saving heart transplant.

“It’s an absolute gift from God to still be able to play this game,” Josh, a member of the Northside Church of Christ in Wichita, said after a successful pitching outing on a blue-sky April afternoon.

Months after his heart transplant, Josh Oakley, then 18, pitches in a spring 2016 game for the Eisenhower High School Tigers in Goddard, Kan., west of Wichita.

Before the transplant, Josh’s parents, Darrell and DeVona Oakley, had feared they might lose him, I reported in a front-page Christian Chronicle feature. 

“I’d already accepted that God was going to take him,” his father told me, “and I was preparing myself to have to feel what he felt by giving up his son.”

Steve Tandy, a longtime minister for the Northside church, recalled: “It looked like Josh wasn’t going to make it. … Things were crashing pretty fast.”

But as Josh lay unconscious at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo., in October 2015, the perfect heart became available.

“Ernesto Alonso Aguilar’s family made a selfless decision under unimaginable circumstances and provided a life-saving miracle,” Josh’s obituary noted.

The faithful young man spent the next five years making a difference.

Heart transplant recipient Josh Oakley, top center in red, poses with his extended family — including his parents, sisters, brothers-in-law, nieces and nephews.

“He wanted to be better because he understood his second chance,” said Matt Carden, youth and family minister for the Eastwood Church of Christ in Hutchinson, Kan. “Not many people get a second chance in that manner, and he didn’t want to blow it.”

After high school, Josh attended Tabor College in Hillsboro, Kan., on a baseball scholarship. 

During college, he remained active in church activities. He served as a counselor at Kansas’ Silver Maple Camp, which is associated with Churches of Christ. He worked as a summer intern for Carden at the Eastwood church.

“For me, it’s really easy to see why God gave him those extra years.”

“For me, it’s really easy to see why God gave him those extra years,” said Carden, who was 18 when he first met Josh, then a 9-year-old camper at Silver Maple. 

“He definitely had a heart for the outcast,” the youth minister said. “He was really good at making sure the loners, the outsiders, the awkward people knew that Jesus loved them.”

Josh “was always trying to be better for Jesus because of Jesus’ grace. It was never an ‘earn my way into heaven’ thing but always, ‘I’m inspired to be better because of Jesus.’”

After Josh finished his undergraduate studies last spring, he entered Tabor’s master’s in business administration program while working as a second-grade teacher’s aide and a baseball coach at Life Prep Academy, a Christian school in Wichita.

He loved children. Absolutely loved them.

“He’s got 15 nieces and nephews, and at family get-togethers, he’d be out in the yard playing football with them or playing baseball with them,” his mother told me.

At Life Prep, he played “rock, paper, scissors” with a special-needs boy in his class and made him feel important, DeVona recalled.

Josh Oakley with his parents at the Northside Church of Christ in Wichita, Kan., on Senior Sunday in 2016.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a heart rejection episode this past November forced Josh into an Oklahoma City intensive care unit. He spent Thanksgiving in the hospital, eating a home-cooked meal provided by the Britton Road Church of Christ.

But as 2021 rolled around, he was doing better.

“Josh was cautious, but he refused to live scared or in isolation. He went back to work in January, continued spending time with our family and his friends and kept on coaching. He lived life every day and loved big!”

“Josh was cautious, but he refused to live scared or in isolation,” DeVona said. “He went back to work in January, continued spending time with our family and his friends and kept on coaching. He lived life every day and loved big!”

In late February, Josh woke up one Monday feeling sick. He tested positive for COVID-19 that Thursday. 

On Friday — Feb. 26 — his condition worsened. DeVona called 911 at 12:45 p.m. Firefighters quickly moved him to the floor and performed CPR for 45 minutes. He  was pronounced dead at 2:03 p.m.

His sudden passing at home, surrounded by family, came as a definite shock.

“You kind of prepared yourself more for it five years ago,” DeVona said, fighting back tears. 

“He was living life,” she added. “He was doing so many things, feeling so good. There’d be bumps in the road as far as (heart) rejection and things like that. But for him to code and go into cardiac arrest, you know — no, I don’t know if you’re ever ready and expect that.”

More than 400 people showed up for Josh’s socially distanced memorial service at the Northside church. 

Josh Oakley, an avid fan of Oklahoma Sooners football, celebrates a win by his favorite team. At the family’s suggestion, many wore sports attire to his funeral.

Many mourners wore Sooners jerseys or T-shirts or attire for other favorite teams, as suggested by the family. Besides God, his family and friends, Silver Maple Camp, baseball and fun, Josh also loved University of Oklahoma football. 

“We had no idea how far-reaching his influence was on people.”

“It was just really cool,” DeVona said of the size of the crowd that filled the church auditorium and an overflow area. “We had no idea how far-reaching his influence was on people.”

Josh never threw a perfect game, but oh, what a difference he made on his way to the ultimate Hall of Fame.

“One of the things that he said was that he didn’t have to worry about it anymore,” DeVona said of her son’s reaction to his positive COVID-19 test. “And then he said, ‘If it’s my time to go, I’m ready. Either way, I’m good.’”

BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. Reach him at bobby.ross@christianchronicle.org.

Remembering Josh Oakley

The family urges memorial donations to the Josh Oakley Baseball Scholarship Fund at Life Prep Academy or to Silver Maple Camp. 

Doug Johnson

Doug Johnson

3/7/64 – 2/1/21

La Grange Church of Christ, Texas

“Doug was a beloved high school coach and history professor who influenced many students over the years. He also taught church history classes for our congregation,” Scott Elliott, minister for the La Grange Church of Christ, said.

Dwaine Johnson

Dwaine Johnson

11/2/40 — 1/20/21

Baker Heights Church of Christ, Abilene, Texas

Jimmy Don Smith

6/12/56 — 12/21/20

Monterey Church of Christ, Lubbock, Texas

Mark Riggs

Mark Riggs

3/15/53 — 12/14/20

Highland Church of Christ, Abilene, Texas

“Mark was a quiet, gentle, soft spoken, brilliant, loving, devoted, musically talented, kind, forgiving and a lifelong follower of God,” Debbie Riggs said.

Nancy Province

5/12/66 — 12/12/20

Central Church of Christ, Dalton, Ga.

“Kind, quiet and forgiving,” Shay Bingham, a member of the Central church, said.

Sally Jones

6/22/40 — 11/14/20

Central Church of Christ, Dalton, Ga.

Sally Lunn

5/13/28 — 11/30/20

Central Church of Christ, Dalton, Ga.

“She was never sick, never went to the doctor until COVID-19.  Precious lady,” Shay Bingham, a member of the Central church, said.

Bill Russell

4/14/42 — 11/24/20

Central Church of Christ, Dalton, Ga.

“Anyone who knew Bill was truly blessed to have had him in their lives. Bill was for the underdog, the underserved and the underprivileged,” Shay Bingham, a member of the Central church, said.

John Stephen “Jake” MacLeod

Jake MacLeod

12/30/52 — 01/08/21

Southside Church of Christ, Ft. Worth, Texas

“Jake MacLeod was one of the most genuine and loving men that I’ve known,” his cousin, Lynn Jones, said. “He loved the Lord and lived that every day of his life. He spread the Gospel far and wide, building facilities for worship in the Philippines. He loved his family and the Lord mightily.”

Donna Graham

5/30/47 — 12/20/20

Riverside Church of Christ, Burlington, Okla.

“Mom dedicated her life to teaching young people and especially young women,” Douglas Graham said.

Carole Smiley

10/8/49 — 1/9/21

La Habra Church of Christ, Calif.

“She was a loving and caring person. She was a true Christian in her actions and words,” Brandy Lange said.

Jerry Winstead

Jerry Winstead

3/18/38 — 12/29/20

Goodman Oaks Church of Christ, Nesbit, Miss.

“It is not an exaggeration to say that Jerry made the world a better place. He didn’t have to wait for a request for help because he was already busy looking for a way to help. He viewed problems in the world as opportunities to serve and a way for the light of Christ to be seen by others,” Richard Stephens, from the Lebanon Church of Christ in Lebanon, Ind., said.

Russell Slasor

Russell Slassor

03/04/28 — 01/25/21

Mount Comfort Church of Christ, Fayetteville, Ark.

Eddie E. Stegall

07/27/59 — 12/13/20

Lakehoma Church of Christ, Mustang, Okla.

Dr. Richard Compton

12/18/53 — 12/3/20

Pennville Church of Christ, Summerville, Ga.

William Horsley

William Ronald Horsley

11/15/35 — 7/27/20

Church of Christ, Columbus, Ohio

“Ron is deeply missed by all family and friends,” Phyllis Horsley said.

Glen Cogburn

6/13/57 — 12/8/20

Bullard Church of Christ, Texas

Wendi Ann (Parrott) Baker

07/15/78 — 12/26/20

Coldwater Church of Christ, Coldwater, Mich.

“She sought to help and lift up all that needed assistance,” said Keith Baker, Wendi’s husband. “She was a friend to many.”

Casey Jones

Casey Jones

01/17/32 — 09/16/20

Collinsville Church of Christ, Collinsville, Texas

“My father in law was a Godly man who raised his family to put God first in all things,” his daughter-in-law, Lynn Jones, said.

James “Jay” Jones

05/28/55 — 11/18/20

Memorial Road Church of Christ, Oklahoma City, Okla.

Connie Thurber

08/25/50 — 11/12/20

Robinson Ave. Church of Christ, Springdale, Ark.

Lois Brawner

04/28/41 — 01/22/21

Robinson Ave. Church of Christ, Springdale, Ark.

Harold Herndon

09/15/40 — 01/17/21

Lake City Church of Christ, Lake City, Fla.

“He was one of the most dedicated Christians, serving the Lord right up until his death,” said his son-in-law, Ricky Clark.

Jack Warford

06/25/42 — 10/22/20

Northeast Church of Christ, Westerville, Okla.

Karen Johnson

09/30/54 — 11/20/20

Longview Church of Christ, Longview, Texas

Velma Evelyn Alsbrooks Taylor

Velma Evelyn Alsbrooks Taylor

03/21/22 — 1/19/21

Highland Oaks Church of Christ, Dallas, Texas

“Evelyn loved God, read her Bible daily and remained faithful until the end,” her daughter, Myra Gordon, said. “Her favorite Scripture was 2 Timothy 1:7.”

Ken and June Sandefur

Ken and June Sandefur

01/25/30 — 11/23/20 and 06/20/30 — 11/09/20

Faith Village Church of Christ, Wichita Falls, Texas

“Spreading the Gospel was our dad’s priority, even when his health made it difficult,” Kathy Floyd, Ken and June’s daughter, said. “(My mother) set a Christian example, not by telling others what to do but by her actions.”

Bobbie Lou Cross

01/23/62 — 12/28/20

Greenbank Church of Christ, Wilmington, Del.

William Rector Pace

9/24/1925 – 8/14/2020

Noland Church of Christ, Pocahontas, Ark.

“My dad was a hard-working, self-taught, self-made man who loved his family, his friends, and his neighbors,” his daughter, Sharon Gardner said. “He taught us to put God first in our lives in all things. We never had a lot of worldly riches but were rich in all the important things.”

David Pearl Burns

9/20/1949 – 1/23/2021

Mandrake Road Church of Christ, Madison, Wis.

“He was a calm, good, gentle man,” said Cliff Cunningham, a brother-in-Christ. “He (and his parents) poured countless hours into kitchen service at a local cherished camp, Wisconsin Christian Youth Camp.”

Robert and Loretta Hamm

Robert and Loretta Hamm

Robert and Loretta (Maltbie) Hamm are celebrating 65 years of marriage! They were married in Cherokee, Okla., on March 10, 1956.  They met while attending Central Christian College in Bartlesville, Okla. (now Oklahoma Christian University in Oklahoma City). 

Robert has served as a pulpit minister in Norwich, Conn., Fort Dodge, Iowa, Alva, Okla., and Dewey, Okla. In addition to serving the local communities, he has participated in multiple mission endeavors throughout the world and has sung with gospel quartets. His gift and legacy have been to provid never-ending encouragement to others.  

Loretta has been a wonderful wife and mother to three children, Bible class teacher extraordinaire, and church camp cook and has entertained thousands of guests in their home with her fabulous hospitality and culinary skills. Now retired, they live in Edmond, Okla., and are grandma and grandpa to two boys whom they adore. Robert works part time for a funeral home where he serves families who are grieving.  

Thank you, Robert and Loretta, for your extraordinary example of Christian love and service!

Herman and Shirley Pope

67 years

Members of the Nampa Church of Christ in Idaho.

Congratulations, Herman and Shirley!

Memorials

Sidney Dwayne Ellis

1930-2020

Sidney Ellis

A memorial service for brother Ellis is planned for 3 p.m. Friday, April 9, at the meeting place of the Owasso Church of Christ in Oklahoma.

Sidney was born to Jewel (J.W.) and Irene Goodson Ellis on Oct. 21, 1930, in Foss, Okla. He departed this life on Saturday, Nov. 7, 2020, at 90 years and 17 days old. His high school sweetheart, Maxine Whinery, was by his side for their 71 years of love-filled married life.

Sidney was valedictorian for the 1949 graduation class of Dill City High School in Oklahoma. The next year he began studies at Abilene Christian College (now University) in Texas. He was a dedicated student and condensed a four-year education degree into three years. Following his college graduation in 1953, he began his preaching career that spanned six decades. He started in a small church at Ames, Okla., which is near Enid. He ended his full-time career in Owasso in 1994. At Owasso he filled the pulpit position for nine years, served as an elder for 15 years, and led the Owasso School of Biblical Studies as director for 10 years.

Family and friends know Sidney as a teller of jokes. His motto was “Everyone needs humor.” He would never tire of retelling his stories to one and all. He would rehearse and learn new ones inside the Owasso McDonald’s. This is where the ROMEO (Retired Old Men Eating Out) club met daily.

Sidney shared his love of the Lord and His Word with many, many people. As a respected gospel preacher, he became an encourager to others in the preaching profession.  His children, Max Dwayne, Ken and Janice, seven grandchildren, 11 great-grandchildren and three great-great grandchildren are all blessed with the memory and influence of this godly, encouraging man.

Van Tate

1935-2021

Van Tate

Van Tate, age 85, of Searcy, Ark., passed away on Jan. 24, 2021. He is survived by his wife, Jean Tate, and four daughters and sons-in-law: Susan Harrington (Larry); Lori Shelton (Jim); Ann Neal (Eddie); and Jill Wood (Michael), all of Searcy. He is also survived by two sisters and their husbands: Janice McCoy (Glenn) of Yorba Linda, California, and Jo Lynn Wilson (Wayne) of Searcy. In addition, he is survived by nine grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.

Van attended and graduated from Florida Christian College, Abilene Christian College, Fuller Theological Seminary (where he received an M.A.) and the University of Nairobi in Kenya (where he received a Ph.D. in anthropology). 

In 1965, Van and Jean moved to Kenya with their children where they served as pioneer missionaries, planting the seed of the gospel and starting many churches. In 1976, he began a career at Harding University, where he remained until his retirement. He taught sociology, cultural anthropology, missions, and Bible. Van influenced another generation of missionaries who went not only to Kenya but also to other nations around the world. He and his family were founding members of the Cloverdale Church of Christ where he served as an elder until his health no longer allowed.

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, a private family ceremony was held at the Cloverdale Church of Christ building on Jan. 27. A video of the funeral is available to view at Cloverdale Church of Christ YouTube channel. Funeral arrangements were with Roller Daniel Funeral Home, Searcy.

Lucia Vanderpool

1936-2021

Lucia Vanderpool

Lucia Worth DuBois Vanderpool, Ed.D., left this earth on Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2021, at age 84. She was born in Jackson, Miss., on Dec. 6, 1936. A graduate of Harding Academy in Searcy, Ark., Lucia also earned her B.B.A degree in office administration from the University of Memphis in Tennessee, an M.S. degree in operations management from the University of Arkansas, and, at age 72, an Ed.D. in higher education leadership from Union University in Tennesee. 

Lucia was preceded in death by her daughter, Melanie Denise Vanderpool Jerden, her grandson, James Gilbert Hodge, her sister, Claudette DuBois Jones, and her parents, Gilbert Eldredge and Georgia Elvira Hamby DuBois.  

She is survived, and will be deeply missed, by her loving husband of 64 years, Dr. Kenneth Gene Vanderpool; her children, Suzanne Vanderpool Hodge (Wally), Kenneth Gene Vanderpool, Jr. (Jo Ann), and Nancy Kathleen Vanderpool Manning. Lucia is also survived by seven grandchildren and a large number of nieces and nephews.  

Family and friends gathered Saturday, Jan. 30, for a memorial service at Memphis Funeral Home and Memorial Gardens.

Sue Wiley

1931-2021

Sue Wiley

Sue S. Wiley (“MeeMaw”) was born on Aug. 8, 1931, in Kingsville, Texas, to Walter and Velma Schreiber and met her Savior face-to-face on Feb. 4, 2021. 

She was married 58 years to the love of her life, Bill Wiley. She was always active in serving her various church families in Fort Worth, Texas; Waco, Texas; Hampton, Va.; New Braunfels, Texas; Georgetown, Texas; Midland, Texas; and Edmond, Okla. 

Sue worked as a realtor in New Braunfels and helped take the census in 1970. Her sewing skills were legendary as was her hospitality to friends and strangers alike. Always an avid reader, she could work daily crossword puzzles in ink. Her Christmas cookie recipe and tradition lives on through her great-grandchildren, who bake hundreds of the cookies each year. 

She was preceded in death by her parents, husband, and sons Larry and Mark Wiley. She is survived by her son Mike and wife Julie Ann Wiley; grandchildren Mark and wife Teresa Wiley and Brook and husband Jerred Engand; great-grandchildren James, Lydia, Evelyn, Adlee, Jacee, Adriana, Constance and Draven; many nieces, nephews and extended family. 

The family wishes to thank Teal Creek Assisted Living Center and Lifespring Hospice for their care and love for MeeMaw and for always treating her like royalty. 

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to The Christian Chronicle, to the Valerie England Youth Ministry Endowment at Oklahoma Christian University Office of Advancement or to a charity of your choice.

David Kent Williams, MD

1961-2020

David Kent Williams

David Kent Williams went to his heavenly home on Nov. 28, 2020, at age 58.

Kent was born to David and Sandra Williams on Nov. 29, 1961, in Amarillo, Texas. 

Kent met his wife, Micky, in 1985 at the San Leandro Church of Christ in California. They married on March 8, 1986, and went on to have three children: Jenna, Benjamin and Leanna.

Kent lived in Amarillo until age 5 then moved to the Boston area where he lived until age 11. His family then moved to Fresno, Calif., where he stayed through his high school graduation. After graduation, Kent went to Oklahoma Christian College and graduated with a pre- med degree. He then moved to San Lorenzo, Calif., to attend chiropractic school. After practicing as a chiropractor for seven years, Kent went to Ross University School of Medicine. After graduation, Kent relocated his family to Edmond, Okla., to complete his residency. After practicing medicine for several years there, he and Micky moved their family back to Dublin, Calif., to be closer to extended family.

In addition to being a dedicated and loving husband and father, Kent also loved playing guitar, golfing, scuba diving, camping, singing hymns and, possibly most of all, tinkering!

Throughout his entire life, Kent had faith in God and a dedication to loving his family and extended family. Kent joins his father David in heaven.

He is survived by his wife, Micky, his children Jenna, Ben and Leanna, his mother Sandra, his brother and sisters Grant, Sarah and Sharon, and many aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, and great nieces and nephews.

View full obituary at everloved.com/life-of/david-williams-md/.

Virgil Yocham

1933-2021

Virgil Yocham

Virgil Almous Yocham of Lubbock passed away on Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2021, at the age of 88. He was born Feb. 23, 1933, in Claremore, Okla. to Amos and Susie (Smith) Yocham. 

At a young age, the family moved to Buckeye, Ariz., where he grew up. Virgil was a servant and entered the ministry in 1972. Two years later he helped establish the External Studies Department of Sunset International Bible Institute (SIBI) in Lubbock, Texas, and was involved in leading the ministry until his passing. 

“SIBI has lost a great builder of the Kingdom who has joined his Savior in paradise,” the institute’s leaders posted on social media.

Virgil also served as minister for various churches in need.

Those left to cherish his memory are his wife, Rilda Yocham; children Stephen Yocham and wife Debra, Kimberly Johnson, Paige Baldridge and husband Randy, and Tracy Coffman and husband Steve, all of Lubbock; 12 grandchildren; and 13 great-grandchildren.

Virgil was preceded in death by his parents; his first wife, Joy in 2019; sons Gary Ray and David Len Yocham; and granddaughter, Cyndee Payne.

Burial was March 3 at Resthaven Memorial Park with memorial services at Sunset Church of Christ.

In lieu of flowers, memorials can be made to Sunset International Bible Institute.

Tribute

Remembering Dorothea Czeczotka, 1934-2021

The life and journey of Dorothea Rae Czeczotka was extensive and well lived. 

Dorothea Rae Czeczotka

She was born in Denison, Texas, on Aug. 30, 1934. The 86 years of her life began with an early childhood faith influenced by her maternal grandmother. This influence stayed with her until her passing on Jan. 26, 2021.

She met her future husband, Murray, through mutual friends when he was stationed at Perrin Air Force Base near Denison. Her dedication was so strong, she wouldn’t consider marriage to her husband in 1955 unless he was a part of her faith in Christianity. Ten months after discharge they married and lived in Hurst where Murray worked for Bell Helicopter as an air traffic controller. 

The preacher there, Ed Wharton, would influence their move, 27 years later, to Vienna, Austria, where they joined the missionary staff at Eastern European Mission. EEM printed Bibles, New Testaments and literature in the languages of the nations behind the so-called “Iron Curtain.” Now the ministry prints and distributes Bibles and faith-based materials in formerly communist nations.

Her dedication to Jesus fulfilled her desire to be involved in missions. She learned a new language in her 50s and traveled extensively to most of the European countries in need of God’s Word. 

During her 21 years living in Vienna, she hosted more than 100 people in her home, as is noted in her guestbook. She loved to cook and was a delightful host, loving on those who visited her and sharing her funny wit, making all feel at home.

She participated in Bible study correspondence courses, leading many to find Jesus Christ. There are countless stories of their journeys behind the iron curtain, including detentions for being in places where they shouldn’t have been.

She wrote many letters and also befriended an imprisoned man in Africa, sharing the gospel of Jesus through writing to him and paying for a lawyer who got him freed from a false charge. 

She was a gifted teacher. She taught marriage classes through a biblical foundation. She stayed connected to family by her writing and the annual trips at Christmas. 

She traveled back to the U.S. for the births of her grandchildren, and six of her seven grandchildren visited her in Austria during summer breaks from school. She taught the ladies class for the Church of Christ in Groton, Conn.

Dorothea leaves her husband of 65 years, Murray Michael Czeczotka; three daughters: Karen Shaver and husband Guy, Sheri Gray and husband David and Lori Jackson; seven grandchildren: Cori Ruiz and husband Edgar, Rusty Long and wife Brittany, Erin Starkey and husband Seth, Joni Dorothea Long, Michael Gray, Matthew Gray and wife Katie and Tiffany Harris and husband Matt; nine great-grandchildren: Evan and Zeke Ruiz; Arelli, Ezri, Becker and Neri Long; Lincoln and Margo Starkey; Asher Gray and baby Harris due in April. She leaves her sister, Judith Waldene Nevil.

Dorothea’s celebration of life will be held in her birthplace of Denison, Texas. In lieu of flowers, memorials can be be sent to: 

Eastern European Mission

777 Lonesome Dove Trail.  

Hurst, TX 76054 

With Appreciation

The Christian Chronicle appreciates gifts received in memory of Bob Nix, Thelma and Grover Ross, Imogene Sardis, Mr. O. A. Savage, Mary Smith, Matthew Smith, Mildred “Mickey” Turney, Duard Wade, Emma Walker and Joyce Williams. 

Showcase the lives of your loved ones — birth and wedding announcements anniversaries, memorials, honors for longtime ministers and workers and more. 

Contact tonya.patton@christianchronicle.org for rates and more information.

James and Mickie French (78 years)

James Leonard and Mary Frances “Mickie” were married in Weatherford, Texas, on Feb. 20, 1943. James will be 100 years old on Feb. 12, and Mickie turned 97 on Jan. 3.

James and Mickie French

The War was going strong at that time, but Leonard was working at an ammunition factory, which allowed him deferments from the military. After a few months, as his deferment was due to renew, he decided to join the Air Force instead of accepting the next deferment. He spent most of the next two years in North Carolina training glider pilots. Mickie was able to spend most of that time with him. 

They were blessed with four children — two boys and two girls.  They have seven grandchildren and six great-grandchildren, with number seven on the way.  

They were also very blessed by Leonard’s aunt who introduced them to a young preacher named Andrew Connally. After three months of Monday night Bible studies, he baptized them into the Lord’s church at the Hurst Church of Christ in Texas in 1954.  

They have spent many years in the ministry serving the Lord. They raised support and supplies for the Chimala Mission and Hospital in Tanzania, which was founded by Andrew Connally.  

James was called “Leonard” until he retired from the Arlington Post Office in 1976. Then he decided he wanted to be called James — and it has been James ever since. Mary Frances has been Mickie since her softball days after high school. 

Over the years they have lived in many communities around the Dallas-Fort Worth area and have many friends, brothers and sisters.  They are now living in Waxahachie, Texas, and are members of the Northside Church of Christ.

They have had a wonderfully blessed life and they know who to give the credit for that. 

We love you, Mom and Dad, Grandmother and Granddad!

Elmo and Mary Collins

70 years

Calvin, Okla.

Members of the Atwood Church of Christ.

Elmo and Mary Collins

Memorials

Evelyn Ruth (Caldwell Blount) Anderson

1924-2020

Evelyn Anderson, 96, beloved mother, sister and grandmother, passed away Dec. 22, 2020. A servant of her Lord, her extended family and, indeed, all who crossed her path, she shared herself with them with diligence and joy throughout her life. 

Evelyn Anderson

Born in 1924 in Wirt, Okla., to Frank and Thelma Ruth Caldwell, she was reared in Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico as the eldest of six children, including Anna Lee, Jack, Mary Ellen, John and Jerry. Both Ann Overmier and Jerry Dear survive her.

She married A. W. (Bill) Blount (now deceased) in June 1944. They were blessed by the birth of three sons and one daughter: William Douglas, Kerry Andrew, Brian Paul and Christina Evelyn Blount, all of whom survive her. She later married Alfred B. Anderson (now deceased). Seven grandchildren, 10 great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren, along with many cousins, nieces, nephews, great-nieces and nephews have been blessed by her love.  

Evelyn and Bill raised their children in the Golden, Arvada and Lakewood Churches of Christ in Colorado. Evelyn’s love of God was always evident. She was a faithful member of the church. She joyfully served in many capacities, including as a devoted Christian wife and mother, church secretary and Sunday school teacher. She was a World Bible School correspondence course teacher, guide and evangelist for students in Kenya and Nigeria and for prison inmates in the U.S. She was a missionary assistant in Mount Hagen, Papua New Guinea for six years. Returning to the U.S., she made her home in, Montgomery, Ala., and Albuquerque, N.M., where she was a member of and secretary for the University Church of Christ. Later she was a longtime member of the Riverside Church of Christ family.

Throughout her life, Evelyn’s steadfast demonstration of her love of Jesus through her kindness and empathy for others was the hallmark of her character. She also had a beautiful voice and loved to sing hymns! She took to heart and put into action the words, “This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine!” 

Her life was an inspiration and a blessing to so many. When complimented, she would point to heaven and say, with a twinkle in her eyes, “Look up!”  

A graveside service was Jan. 4 at French Sunset Memorial Park in Albuquerque.

Thomas ‘Tom’ Brister

1938-2020

Thomas “Tom” D. Brister, 82, of Beebe, Ark., went to be with the Lord on Nov. 14, 2020. He was born in Mississippi. He graduated with a Bible degree from Harding University in Arkansas and later obtained a master’s degree from Harding School of Theology in Memphis, Tenn. 

Thomas Brister

He was the first person on record from the Thyatira Church of Christ, the oldest congregation in Mississippi, to become a full-time minister. He served as a minister for several congregations in Pennsylvania, Missouri, Mississippi and Arkansas. He retired from preaching at Austin Church of Christ in Arkansas after being there for 18 years. While he was preaching at Austin, he also worked for the Arkansas Department of Human Services as a social worker at Arkansas Children’s Hospital. 

He was active in Lads to Leaders, an organization that trains young people to be leaders and to do what is right. He loved to raise vegetables in his garden. He spent his life serving God and others with all his heart. He is survived by his wife Juanez, three sons, five grandchildren and one brother.

Richard David Dean Sr.

1942-2020

Richard David Dean Sr. was born in New Albany, Miss., on March 19, 1942, to Eugene and Mary Virginia Dean.

Richard David Dean Sr.

Richard accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior at Vance Avenue Church of Christ in Memphis under the ministry of Nakomis Yeldell (now deceased). Later he served the East Capitol Street Church of Christ in Washington, D.C. and the Norris Road Church of Christ in Memphis. At the time of his passing he was an active member of East End Church of Christ in Memphis.

He earned degrees from Southwestern Christian College in Terrell, Texas, Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas, (where he was honored as the university’s first African-American graduate) and the University of The District of Columbia. 

Richard met Vallie B. Johnson at Southwestern, and they married on Dec. 29, 1964. They welcomed sons Richard II, Clifton and Mensah Dean. He retired after 32 years of teaching in Washington. 

He was preceded in death by brothers Carl, Therman, Clifton, and Summer Dean; sister Elise; and his parents. 

Survivors include his former wife, Vallie Dean; sons Richard II, Clifton and Mensah Dean; sisters Helen (Lonnie) of Tampa, Fla., Juanita, Katie and Carolyn, all of California; and cousins Charles and Minnie Bowling of Tennessee.

Nancy Joan Johnson

1931-2020

Nancy Joan Johnson, 89, of Broken Arrow, Okla., died peacefully Dec. 14, 2020. She was born to Maude and Harry Lavender in Stamford, Texas. Nancy married Herman Johnson in Stamford, Texas, on Aug. 26, 1954. They were married for 59 years.   

Nancy Johnson

Nancy graduated from Stamford High in 1949 and Abilene Christian College in 1953 with a bachelor’s in business. Nancy taught at Great Lakes Christian College in Beamsville, Ontario, Canada, where she and Herman met. She also taught at high schools in Ropesville, Texas, and Broken Arrow until she retired in 1993. 

She was instrumental in starting a Ladies Bible Class project known as the “Piggybank Shower,” which raised funds to be given to the Westview Boys Home in Hollis, Okla., for the boys to purchase and raise a pig for their yearly project.  In addition to her volunteer work, she found time to do some writing and had an article published in  Christian Woman magazine. 

Nancy is survived by children Caren Mims and husband Scott of Midland, Texas, and Brant Johnson of Collinsville, Okla.; brother Ted Lavender of Chattanooga, Tenn.; and grandchildren Leah Johnson, Sarah Johnson, Brent Mims and Carri Mims. Nancy was proceeded in death by her husband Herman and her parents.

The family suggests donations be made to the “Piggybank Shower” in care of the Broken Arrow Church of Christ, 505 E. Kenosha St., Broken Arrow, OK 74012.

Susan Rosenbaum

1945-2020

Susan Williams Paine Rosenbaum, 75, of Live Oak, Fla., passed away from COVID-19 and pneumonia on Dec. 8, 2020. 

Susan Rosenbaum

Susan was born in Atlanta on Oct. 13, 1945, to Charles H. Paine III and Mary Halbrook Paine. She was the great-granddaughter of James A. Harding. She was a member of the Live Oak Church of Christ where she assisted and encouraged her husband in his ministerial work.

Susan is survived by her husband Dennis Rosenbaum of Live Oak, three daughters and sons-in-law and two sons and daughters-in-law: Sarah Pinson (Conner) of Smyrna, Ga.; Mary Atkins (Michael) of Valdosta, Ga.; James Rosenbaum (Dena) of Lake Park, Ga.; Rachel Penick (Scott) of Summerville, S.C.; and Chip Rosenbaum (Samantha) of Summerville; 10 grandchildren: Gabrielle Pinson, Hannah York (Kegan) and one great-grandchild due in early 2021, Mackenzie Atkins, Philip Rosenbaum, Abigail Penick, Anna Penick, Luke Penick, Jack Penick, Kenley Rosenbaum, and Christian Rosenbaum. Also surviving is one sister, Victoria Harding Paine, and a brother and sister-in-law, Charles Herman Paine IV (Ruth).

Funeral services were held Dec. 12, 2020, at the mausoleum at Westview Cemetery in Atlanta. Dennis Rosenbaum and Bill Irby officiated. 

The family requests donations be made to www.gofundme.com/f/susan-rosenbaum-memorial-fund. Donations may also be sent to Live Oak Church of Christ, PO Box 281, Live Oak, FL 32064.

Kathy Wilson

1921-2020

Mary Kathleen “Kathy” Wilson was born on Feb. 5, 1921, in Holland, Mo., the second of four children of William Henry and Mattie Mae Northern. She graduated from Holland High School in 1939, where she was a softball and basketball star. 

Kathy Wilson

Kathy worked in Blytheville at a local radio station for a short time and then moved to Long Beach, Calif. It was there that she met a young, handsome soldier and later married Calvert Wallace Wilson on June 28, 1945, in Yarbro, Ark. They were blessed with two beautiful daughters, Jan and June. The family moved several times due to Calvert’s being in the Air Force (Washington D.C.; Lubbock, Texas; Japan; Altus, Okla., Oklahoma City and, after retirement, to Table Rock Lake in Shell Knob, Mo. 

While living in Lubbock, Kathy was baptized at Sunset Church of Christ in 1955. Kathy was the consummate wife and mother during all of these assignments. After Calvert’s military retirement, the family settled in south Oklahoma City. The girls were in high school, Kathy worked as a school secretary at Hillcrest Elementary school, and Calvert worked in Civil Service at Tinker AFB. 

They were also able to make several trips to Europe, Japan and Hawaii. Calvert’s health deteriorated, and Kathy was again the ultimate caregiver and devoted wife. Her prayers were answered when Calvert was baptized in 1994 by her brother, Fenter Northern. Calvert departed this life on Aug. 23, 1996. 

Kathy was devoted to her Lord and to her local church, the Shell Knob Church of Christ. She later attended the Memorial Road Church of Christ in Oklahoma City where she made many friends who loved and welcomed her! 

She was surrounded by special neighbors and friends for almost 50 years in Shell Knob. At 90 years old, she bought a new Ford Escape to try to have a reliable car to drive to Oklahoma! Finally, at the age of 95 she was convinced that she needed to quit driving and move to Oklahoma City to live with her daughter, June Cromling. 

She never sacrificed her independent spirit. She was very content and satisfied with her new home, and finally she was able to be cared for rather than being the caregiver. She loved basketball and became a devoted Thunder fan and especially cherished the times that she could attend in person. 

Kathy received the ultimate reward early in the morning of Dec. 26, 2020, in her bed in the arms of her loving daughter and made that final move to join the family of believers with Jesus in Heaven.

Kathy was preceded in death by her daughter, Jan DeLucia, on Dec. 5, 2011, which was a tragic loss for a loving mother. 

She is survived by her loving brother, Fenter Northern, whom she always loved, respected and relied upon. She is also survived by her daughter June and husband John Cromling of Edmond, Okla., five grandchildren Yvette Connor, Natalie Renn, Johnny Cromling, Josh Cromling, and Julie Mesa. She was also blessed with 11 great-grandchildren Amelia Bettati; Emeryn, Ashlyn, Madyson, and London Renn; Jake and Caroline Cromling; Rylee and Zoey Cromling; Megan and Addie Mesa. Addie was a special friend, coach, and playmate of her beloved GMa. A graveside service for the family was held in Steele, Mo., on Monday, Jan. 4, 2021, and a memorial service will be held later this year at the Shell Knob Church of Christ when it is safe to gather and celebrate her long and vibrant life.

In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made to the Shell Knob Church of Christ, PO Box 202, Shell Knob, MO, 65747, in her name due to her love for that church family for 50 years.

Tribute

Remembering the life and legacy of Stan Stout

Stan Stout, founder of Baja Missions, died Nov. 29, 2020. Lee Milam, a member of the ministry’s board, wrote the following tribute. For more information or to make a memorial gift, see bajamissions.us/in-memory-of-stan-stout.

Stan Stout

Hearts are heavy as we witness a 21st century saint enter heaven’s gates. Stan Stout was so many things to the untold numbers who were touched by his loving hands. His remarkable life-map is a compelling study of what happens when following the steps of Jesus becomes more important than chasing the rainbows of earthly gain. His story is one that needs to be told.

As a young man, Stan rose through the ranks of corporate success in Southern California. As an investment and financial management consultant, he worked daily with millionaires, and at the age of 40, was at the top of his game. Yet something was missing. He made time to serve the church as an elder, but still there was something incomplete. He kept hearing the voice of God calling him to do more.

One holiday weekend, some church friends invited Stan and his wife, Carole, to drive south to Mexico on a weekend trip to help the poor in the area around Ensenada. 

Stan had traveled the world in the Navy but was not prepared to see the poverty he witnessed in Mexico: The hungry, struggling to survive. The cardboard, dirt floor homes. The sickness and suffering. Nothing could prepare him for the heartbreak of holding the abandoned, fatherless children, many wandering the streets all alone, searching for relief, walking up to Stan with their hands out, begging for what Christ called “just a cup of cold water.”

Stan came home to Yorba Linda, submitted his resignation to the company, sold his home and his yacht, and moved to Ensenada to become the director of the City of Children, an orphanage caring for more than 100 children. It was here that Stan and Carole would spend more than 25 years rescuing hundreds of those abandoned little ones that would lovingly call Papa Gordo their father.

During those years, Stan would baptize over 500 children in Jesus’ name, never taking any credit for the long, endless hours he and Carole poured into the lives God placed in their care. Under his leadership, the home flourished. Yet Stan heard God’s voice calling him deeper.

In 1996, Rex Watson and I led a team of 60 teens and adults to The City of Children on a summer mission trip, when Stan approached me about a dream he had of growing the church in Baja. At the time, there were only three or four churches in the entire state. That bothered Stan. He knew when his children at the home turned 18, they would graduate and leave with no church in the communities they would return to. Stan asked Rex and me to go with him to San Quintin, an agricultural community three hours south of Ensenada, to explore the possibility of planting a church there. Reluctantly, I went — and my life was never really the same.

Twenty-five years later, God has used the seeds Stan planted to build and establish more than 20 churches and medical clinics throughout Baja. Through Stan’s hands, God used Rex Watson to establish and lead Baja Missions, an amazing nonprofit church-planting organization. And God used Stan to lead me down an unexpected missional road, for which I will always be grateful.

It’s truly an amazing story of a victorious life lived on mission. Stan and Carole never wavered from the calling they heard. The eternal impact of their lives of service will echo through American and Hispanic generations to come. Just think: God did all of this through the life of a man who thought he had it all. 

With Appreciation

The Christian Chronicle appreciates gifts received in honor of Bill Tucker, Anthony and Barbara Turner and Patrick and Lynda Sheehan and in memory of Arthur Lee Adams, George Ann Allen, Evelyn Blount Anderson, Ronald Bedwell, Richard and Sue Birdsall, Dean Bryce, Eva Bush, Edna Champeau, Diane Cockrell, Sharon Crow, Lloyd Deal, Tim Evins, Edgar Haver, Gerald and Shelby Kennedy, Marguerite Knupke, Steve Martin, Paul and Alice Morgan, Thomas Olbricht, Micah Randolph-Hall, Grover Ross and Edwina Sanders.

Holbrook, who played Mark Twain on stage for more years than Samuel Clemens played Mark Twain, did a phenomenal stage production, a one-man show based entirely on Twain’s writings.

I told the organizer I would have something ready. Soon, I was scheduled to be on a panel with some of the top scholars in Twain studies and the man himself, Hal Holbrook.

A journal caught wind of this and asked me to do an interview with Holbrook. This was the equivalent of a little league pitcher being asked to start game one of the World Series in Yankee Stadium.

The auditorium was nearly packed and everyone was anxious. The moderator started the panel, and while she was speaking there was a loud clattering in the back of the room. Everyone turned around and Hal Holbrook was walking down the aisle.

Stopping her presentation, she announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, Hal Holbrook!”

At the end of her talk, I was supposed to speak and Holbrook was going to wrap things up. Instead, as I was rising to walk to the stage, Holbrook pops up and says something to the effect of, “I’m not sure what I am supposed to talk about, so I’ll tell you a little about Mark Twain.”

He talked. And talked. And talked. The moderator kept looking at me and shrugging. When there was a lull in the talk at the end of one of Holbrook’s anecdotes, the moderator stood and said, “Well, Mr. Holbrook, we appreciate your time and the wonderful stories. We can wrap up with the last presentation and then open it up for questions.”

Holbrook, who was hard of hearing, yelled, “WHAT?”

Flustered, the moderator said, “Well, you can take a break before we wrap things up.”

Holbrook hollered, “Break? Well, I’m just getting warmed up!” And the audience erupted in laughter.

I sat back down — and proceeded to be entertained for another 20 minutes. I never got on stage.

After the session ended, a lovely woman came up to me and said, “I’m so sorry we didn’t get to hear your paper.”

“I’m not,” I responded.

“Really? Why not?” she asked.

“Look, when you saw the program and it listed Hal Holbrook and Willie Steele, who were you most excited to see?” I asked.

She stammered, “Well, I uh, ummm …”

“Don’t worry, ma’am. Me, too” I said.

I went next door and had a cup of coffee and a 30-minute interview with Hal Holbrook. I shut the recorder off and we spoke for another 15 to 20 minutes. Our conversation ranged from Twain to politics to theater to Ohio to education and, yes, to seersucker suits.

Willie Steele meets Hal Holbrook at the Christian Scholars Conference in Malibu, Calif., in 2011.

I was fortunate enough to see Holbrook on stage three times. But the time I had coffee with Mark Twain — after he hijacked my panel in Malibu — remains my favorite time with him.

Hal Holbrook died on Jan. 23, 2021 at 95-years-old.

Mark Twain once said, “The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

I kind of wish that were the case today with Holbrook, but he certainly had a good run.

WILLIE STEELE is a professor of English at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tenn. He is the author of “Going the Distance: The Life and Works of W.P. Kinsella,” a biography of the author whose novel became the blockbuster film “Field of Dreams.”

Walter L. Fennel

1935-2020

Walter Fennel

Walter L. Fennel was born in Hillsboro, Texas, during the midst of the Depression. Those were hard times, and his family knew the difficulties caused by hunger and want. His parents and siblings have preceded him in death. 

In 1948 Walt’s family packed up their early belongings and moved to Woodlake, Calif., to “get rich” by working in the fields. Walt said that the wisest decision he ever made was to give his life to Christ as a teenager. He remained faithful to that commitment all the days of his life. At Woodlake High School he played varsity baseball and lettered all four years, earning many awards. Walt spoke for several youth rallies in the area. A Christian man in the Woodlake Church of Christ, Uless Carruth, encouraged him to become a minister and attend Freed- Hardeman College in Henderson, Tenn., to study Bible. He assisted Walt by helping to pay his tuition. 

At Freed-Hardeman in 1954, Walt worked in the dorm and preached for a little country church in Roby, Tenn. Walt continued to play baseball and was even offered an opportunity to play professional baseball. After one week in the pros training camp, he decided that his heart was in preaching God’s word. He graduated from FHC after completing his third year in Bible in 1957. He was named “Mr. Freed-Hardeman College.” 

On his way to attend Harding University, in Searcy, Ark., Walt had an automobile accident in Los Angeles. His car was totaled, and he ended up attending Pepperdine College. J. P. Sanders and Norvel Young helped him by hiring him as a recruiter. He worked out of the Office of Admissions, where he met a student who worked part time, Llona Elford. They were married on Dec. 12, 1959, at the Whittier Church of Christ. Walt graduated from Pepperdine in 1960 and Llona in 1961. They shared nearly 61 years together in a great marriage. Walt’s ministry was a shared experience. Llona was his partner and co-worker in all he did. 

Walt preached in California in San Leandro, Napa, Escondido, Temple City, Fresno, and Rancho Cordova. He also served as a police chaplain while in Fresno and Rancho Cordova. He made several trips to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Africa, as well as to Ghana and many trips to Mexico to work at the City of Children and Niños de Baja. Sharing the word of God was his heart’s desire. On May 10, 1975, Pepperdine awarded Walt the “University President’s Award,” and in 2002 he was awarded the “Andrew Benton Service Award.” Walt retired as a full-time elder of the Cordova Church of Christ after completing 50 years in ministry. 

Walt is survived by his wife, Llona; sons, Scott Wayne (Betty) Fennel and Troy Jason (Scarlett) Fennel; and 3 grandchildren, Cody, Micah and Savannah. A private family memorial was held at the graveside on Dec. 12, 2020. That would have been Walt and Llona’s 61st wedding anniversary.

William Kenton Harvey

1937-2020

William Kenton Harvey

Kenton Harvey died Dec. 14, 2020, at the age of 83 years. He was a graduate of Azle High School where he was active in baseball, basketball, track and FFA. Kenton served as Texas state president of FFA and as an FFA exchange student to Great Britain in 1958. He married Shelia Stewart in 1959, and they remained married until Shelia’s death in 2011. From 1960 to 1974 Kenton owned and operated a dairy farm in Parker County. His first love was preaching the gospel of Christ. He served as minister for Churches of Christ in the cities of Poolville, Briar, Justin, and Aledo and occasionally Boyd and Santo. Kenton particularly supported the work in Mexico, Eastern European Missions, area youth rallies and devotionals. He enjoyed and often organized gospel singings. He was known to say that he did not read music, he only excelled in the lost art of reading shape notes. He is survived by his son, Perry and wife, Gloria; daughter Angela and husband Dan Archibald of Fort Worth; sister, Patsy Glover of Azle; and seven grandchildren. Family requests that any memorials be made to Eastern European Missions (eem.org) or The Christian Chronicle.

Betty J. Keeler

1932-2020

Phyllis, left, and Betty, right

Betty Jean Keeler, 90, died Oct. 26, 2020. She was born Aug. 24, 1930, in Stafford, Kan., to John Park and Minnie Hollis (Bemis) Smith. 

Betty graduated from Stafford High School and attended Hutchinson Community Junior College. On June 25, 1950, she married Lloyd “Allan” Keeler in Hutchinson. They shared 47 years of marriage before his death on Nov. 13, 1997. She retired from the Dillon’s Bakery after 20 years of service. Betty enjoyed reading, flowers, and playing Pitch, Solitaire, and Phase 10. She was also an avid Bridge player and enjoyed the friendly competition. She was a member of the Eastwood Church of Christ in Hutchinson. Betty always felt blessed, but she was also a blessing to many others with her warmth, love, and hugs.

Betty is survived by their children: Karen (Jim) Crain of Argyle, Texas, Kenneth (Jackie) Keeler of Oklahoma City, Okla., and Kimberly (David) Gustafson of Hutchinson; 6 grandchildren; 12 great-grandchildren; sister, Donna Kay (Jerry) Swanson of Loveland, Colo.; and sister-in-law, Glenda (Smith) Giles of Hutchinson. 

A tribute from Phyllis Dean:

My husband Jess M. Guilliams and I married in 1954. He was in the Naval AirForce, and after a short honeymoon, we traveled to Hutchinson, Kan., to make our home. We met Allan and Betty Keeler our first Sunday at 14th & Adams Church of Christ. Jess and Allan and Betty and I became best friends. 

When we were transferred to a Naval base close to San Diego, Calif., Betty and I wrote each week. Our shared faith was a joy to us and our growing families.

Betty was always a reserved person until she began her hug ministry. No shyness there! She smiled and gave hugs to everyone and was a joy to so many. As we entered church after Sunday school, members waited eagerly to receive her hugs.

As Betty matured as a Christian she wanted to make a difference in everyone’s life. What a blessing she was to all the people she met and hugged. She made a HUGe difference! Allan was always the person people called on when someone needed help. If he couldn’t help, he knew all the people that could.

These friends were not wealthy in material things but they lived daily for God. They did say, “I am a Christian.” They lived their life helping others.

Dr. Paul Hubbard Jr.

1927-2020

Paul Hubbard Jr.

Paul Hubbard Jr. was a native of Forney, Texas. He attended and graduated from Bishop College in Marshall, Texas in 1949. He also enrolled in Perkins School of Theology in Dallas and received a theology degree in 1952. He served on the Board of Southwestern Christian College in Terrell, Texas.

Dr. Paul Hubbard, Jr. was well known throughout the United States and received an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree in June 1976 from Tennessee Baptist School of Religion. He studied with the late Bro.Marshall Keeble, and in 1951 he was baptized into the body of Christ by the late R. B. Thurman. He was the founding father and coordinator of the Western Michigan State Lectureship for the Churches of Christ. 

Dr. Paul Hubbard, Jr. was preceded in death by his wife, the late Lena Mae (Curtis) of Gonzales, Texas, who was a retired secondary educator with the Grand Rapids Public Schools. He left his legacy to be carried out by his children, grand-children, great-grandchildren and his church family. We are grateful and thankful to know Dr. Paul Hubbard, Jr.’s life was well lived and touched so many. Messages can be sent to secoc@sbcglobal.net

Dan E. Miller, M.D.

1935-2020

Dan Miller M.D.

Dan E. Miller M.D. passed away Nov. 23, 2020, at the age of 84. He is survived by his wife of 58 years, Ellie, three children, and three grandchildren.

An accomplished high school athlete and a life-long runner, Dan graduated from Fairview High School in 1954, attended Central Christian College in Bartlesville, Okla., Central State University, and earned degrees from Oklahoma State University and University of Oklahoma School of Medicine.

He served in the Army after graduating from Oklahoma State and was stationed in Germany for most of his short military career. He brought home with him from his military service an MG convertible. He always credited his cool car for his successful courtship of Ellie. 

Dan practiced family medicine in Edmond until 1975 when he moved to Tulsa. There he joined Emergency Care, Inc., later serving as president. ECI doctors covered Saint Francis Emergency Department. He founded one of the first urgent care medical facilities in Oklahoma – Tulsa Emergency Medical Center, later named MedCenter. In his medical career, Dan practiced family medicine, emergency medicine, and industrial medicine and was one of the first practitioners of telemedicine from Saint Francis Hospital. He was one of the founders of the public trust to provide ambulance service to Tulsa which later became known as EMSA.  He was instrumental in establishing protocols and equipment for the startup of EMSA and Tulsa Life Flight.

Throughout his career, Dan was known for driving the oldest car in the doctor’s parking lot. His frugality knew a single life-defining exception: generous giving to others. Countless coworkers, fellow church members, friends, and even strangers know that Dan’s generosity took several forms — many of them private and anonymous.  

Dan loved to travel. He took great joy in providing these experiences for his family, hosting ski vacations, a month-long trip to Europe and occasional island getaways with his beloved Ellie. 

In retirement, he enjoyed music and writing. He and Ellie travelled more often to see their friends and fellow alumni of Central Christian College, which became Oklahoma Christian University. Dan and Ellie helped organize Central Christian Alumni reunions, and he served on the National Alumni Council of Oklahoma Christian University.

Dan is survived by his wife, Eleanor Jane Branum Miller of Muskogee, Okla.; daughter, Monna (James) Gilpin of Kingwood, Texas;  son, Mike (Holly) Miller of Muskogee, Okla.; son, Matt (Monica) Miller of Muskogee; grandchildren Andrew Gilpin, Meghan Gilpin, and Annalea Jane Miller; brother, Doyle (Dot) Miller of Hennessey, Okla.; sister, Janice (Craig) Laughlin of Copper Canyon, Texas; and many nieces nephews and cousins.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Harold and Melba Miller; brother, Duane Miller; and father-in-law and mother-in-law Vic and Ruth Branum. 

Dan was interred at a private family service at Greenhill Cemetery in Muskogee on Nov. 25, 2020. In the future a celebration of life is planned for extended family and friends. 

In lieu of flowers, a donation may be made to either the Fletcher Center for Music Endowment at Oklahoma Christian or a memorial scholarship for pre-med students at Oklahoma Christian in the name of Dan Miller.  

Send donations to:

Oklahoma Christian University Advancement

PO Box 11000 

Oklahoma City, OK  73136-1100 

G. K. Pennington

1948-2020

G. K. Pennington

G. K. Pennington, 72, of Vienna, W.Va., passed away Sat., Dec. 19, 2020, at his residence.

He was born July 28, 1948, in Birmingham, Ala., son of the late Glenn Kirkpatrick and Joyce Lou Chaffin Pennington. 

G. K. was a 1966 graduate of Aldine High School in Houston, Texas, and a graduate of Fort Worth Christian College, Oklahoma Christian University and Harding University Graduate School of Theology. He was a minister with over 51 years of service, currently working with the Riverside Church of Christ in Williamstown, W.Va. G. K. was a teacher and a professor at Ohio Valley University. He enjoyed fishing, woodworking, boating, and photography.

Surviving him are: his wife of 51 years, Glenda Jo Pitman Pennington; his daughter, Marisa B. Reinsch (Karl) of Snoqualmie, Wash.; his two sons, Michael G. Pennington (Alicia) of Bowling Green, Ky., and Steven E. Pennington; four sisters, Beverly Johnson (David) of Pasadena, Texas, Andra Watson (Ken) of Buffalo Gap, Texas, Dale Rushing (Michael) of Porter, Texas, and Cheryl Gutierrez (Fidel) of Longview, Texas; and one grandson, Jacob Pennington.

In addition to parents, he was preceded in death by one sister, Elizabeth Pennington.

A family gathering for interment will be at a later date in Houston, Texas, at the convenience of the family. 

Eddie Stegall

1959-2020

Eddie Stegall

Eddie Stegall was born July 27, 1959, in Borger, Texas. His family moved to Oklahoma where he was a talented baseball and basketball player at Gould High School and an active member of the Hollis Church of Christ. Eddie married his high school sweetheart, Julene Bailey, and they were married for 43 years. 

After college at Southwestern Oklahoma State University, he moved to Mustang and began his long career with Nabisco Foods. He worked with youth groups and eventually answered God’s call to full-time ministry. He served as the associate minister working with the youth at Lake Houston Church of Christ in Humble, Texas. He also served as the pulpit minister of Clarendon Church of Christ in Texas.

The family moved back to Mustang where Eddie worked several sales jobs before joining Indian Nation Wholesale. He loved riding and working on motorcycles, singing and Christ. Eddie shared Jesus on his many mission trips and at numerous church camps. He loved and cared about people. In the last few years, he taught and encouraged the people he met to love God and keep moving forward.

Eddie died Dec. 13, 2020, in Okla. City after a short battle with Covid-19 and pneumonia. Preceded in death by his parents, Edward and Earlene Stegall, he is survived by his wife, Julene; three children, Amy Barbee, Kyle Stegall, and Lee Stegall; three grandchildren, Madan, Bailey and Treyton; and his siblings, Becky (Tenny) Jones, Cathy (Craig) Kellison, and Jeff (Veronica) Stegall. 

Memorial donations may be made to: The Way, c/o Goldthwaite Church of Christ, P.O. Box 443, Goldthwaite, TX 76844.

Remembering

JT Molder

1932-2019

JT Molder

JT was born March 31, 1932, in Hunt County, Texas, the youngest of eleven children born to Lige and Callie Griffin Molder. He graduated from Commerce (Texas) High School in 1949 and Arlington State College in 1969 with a Bachelor of Science and Electrical Engineering Degree. JT was a member of Epsilon Nu Gamma and Phi Kappa Theta Society. He was in the first graduating class after Arlington State became a four-year college.

JT served his country in the United States Air Force from 1952-1956 where he was an electrical instrument trainer. He worked for Convair as a 

co-op student while attending college. JT retired from Lockheed Martin on Nov. 1, 1993, after 37 years. He retired as a project manager in the Systems Integration Laboratory.

JT was a faithful member of The Western Hills Church of Christ. He was preceded in death by his parents, his ten brothers and sisters, and his stepdaughter, Martha Moxon.

Per JT’s wishes, his ashes were buried in the Cedar Vale, Kan., cemetery alongside other family members.

JT is survived by his wife, Patricia Molder; stepson, Timothy Moxon, daughter, Kem Lively, and son, Jem Molder; granddaughters, Amanda McReynolds, Chrissy Cain, Jennifer Molder and Rachel Davis; great-grandchildren, Ally, Cutter, Cambree, Raylee, Natalie, Madison and Dominic; and a host of nieces and nephews.

With Appreciation

The Christian Chronicle appreciates and acknowledges generous gifts received in honor of Charles L. and Jane G. Brown, June Doan, and Lynn and Phyllis Huff and in memory of Kerry Couch, Harold and Helen Cox, Kay Elder, Donna Galvan, Jack Greenwood, Jerome Kyne, Kyle Lewis, Lindy McDaniel, J. Adam McSween, Carl and Frankie Mitchell, Ruby Mobley, Mike Myers, Imogene Sardis, Bob Spann, James Lester Sparks and Peggy L. Sparks, Jonah Staebell, William Taylor, Gregory Thompson, Mary Joy Uebelein, Paul and Helen Ulmer, Bill and Vivian Wallace, John Weetman, Dorothy Wells, and Betty Wilson. 

Contact tonya.patton@christianchronicle.org for rates and more information.

Ray and Kathryn Boyd

Ray and Kathryn Boyd

70 years

Ray and Kathryn were married in Hillsboro, Texas, on Nov. 5, 1950. Times were pretty hard and having three children in three and a half years made life a special journey for them. They shared bad times with the good, and their precious gift was born 14 years later. They became a family of six, and their older children made great baby sitters. Time marched on, and this special couple made a great Christian example for all four children, relatives and friends. They are a great gift! Happy 70th Anniversary to the most beautiful couple ever!

Memorials

Bencil Smith

1932-2020

Bencil Smith

The sunrise of Bencil Smith’s life took place on Oct. 9, 1932, in the town of Smithland in the Piney Woods of east Texas. Sunset for Bencil occurred three days shy of his 88th birthday, on Oct. 6, 2020, in Houston, Texas. The son of Riley and Blanche Smith, Bencil starred in basketball in high school and college. Later he became a decorated paratrooper in the U.S. army.

After Bencil married his best friend, Odell Rand, in 1955, the couple moved to Houston, where they would raise their five children: Michael, Vincent, Anthony, Gary, and Regina. The Smith family eventually grew to include eighteen grandchildren and twenty great-grandchildren. Bencil was baptized into Christ in 1968 at the Fifth Ward Church of Christ in Houston, where he eventually served as an elder for forty-one years. In the business world, he served as a popular and admired supervisor for McDonald’s Restaurants for over twenty-five years.

Bencil Smith was memorialized in a two-and-a-half-hour funeral service at Fifth Ward on October 15. He was eulogized by his son Gary, Fifth Ward’s pulpit minister. Multiple speakers paid tribute to Bencil’s kind and humble example, both within the congregation and outside it. Several invoked Bencil’s favorite catch-phrase when leading singing at Fifth Ward or elsewhere: “Somebody oughta say ‘Praise the Lord!’” He will be sorely missed by a multitude of family, friends, fellow Christians, and former co-workers.

James “Dean” Bryce

1949-2020

Dean Bryce

Dean Bryce was born in Altus, Okla. on July 24, 1949, to Warren A. “Corkey” Bryce and Irma Jeane Chenault. He was baptized into Christ by Joe Laird in 1962. He married Jeanine Gail Henderson, his endless love, on Dec. 27, 1968. He died Nov. 20, 2020, at home.

At age 15, Dean began preaching in southwest Oklahoma. He served 47 years as a full-time minister in five states. He was known for his excellent, God-focused Bible teaching and beloved for his attentive listening skills and his willingness to help neighbors, family, friends, and strangers.

He was a private pilot, a high school track star, and a thespian. He left the farm in Altus to earn a bachelor’s degree in Bible (Oklahoma Christian University, 1970). In 1985, he received a master’s degree in sacred literature (Trinity Theological Seminary). He also did graduate studies at Abilene Christian University.

He was a speaker at university lectureships, active in military outreach and did short term mission work in Greece, Turkey, Germany, England, Scotland, Belgium, Mexico and Ukraine. He facilitated the Denver Lectures and helped begin a weekly Bible television program on a CBS affiliate in Omaha, Neb. In retirement, he was active in the adult education program at the Memorial Road Church of Christ in Edmond, Okla. 

His children and grandchildren were his true delight. He was proud of their accomplishments, primarily that they are all followers of Jesus. He was diagnosed with stage IV cancer in March and underwent aggressive treatments. His lifetime walk with Jesus inspired others to follow the God he loved.  

He was preceded in death by his father, Corkey Bryce; sister, Janet Lea Bryce; grandparents, W.P. Bryce and Willie Watts Bryce, Osie Chenault and Elizabeth Dodson Chenault.

He is survived by his wife, Jeanine Bryce, Edmond, Okla.; mother, Irma Bryce, Altus, Okla.; sister, Brenda McDonald, Euless, Texas; son, Brady (Donna) Bryce, Albuquerque, NM; daughter, Kelly Bryce (Michael) Taylor, Forney, Texas; grandchildren, Nathan and Elizabeth Bryce, Taryn and Cameron Taylor; and a brother-in-law, Bruce (Wanetta) Henderson, Carson City, NV.

In lieu of flowers, the family has established a university scholarship fund to advance Christian college opportunities for underserved students.

https://firstabq.churchcenter.com/giving (Dean Bryce Scholarship)

Make checks payable to:

“First ABQ” 

10101 Montgomery NE

Albuquerque, NM   87111

memo “Dean Bryce Scholarship”

With Appreciation

The Christian Chronicle appreciates and acknowledges generous gifts received in honor of Bill Tucker, Anthony and Barbara Turner and in memory of Arthur Lee Adams, Ronald Bedwell, Dean Bryce, Edna Champeau, Lloyd Deal, Edgar Haver, Paul and Alice Morgan, Thomas Olbricht, Grover Ross, Imogene Sardis, Mildred “Mickey” Turney, Duard Wade, Emma Walker, and Joyce Williams. 

For rates and more, contact tonya.patton@christianchronicle.org 

Hubert and Walterrene Hartin

Hubert and Walterrene Hartin

74 years

Oct. 15, 1946

Church of Christ Downtown in Cedar Hill, Texas. 

Memorials

Nancy Chapman

1923-2020

Nancy Ruth Mullaney Chapman of Dallas, Texas, went Home on July 12, 2020 at the age of 97. She was predeceased by her firstborn son, Adair Pinckney Chapman III (Buz) on July 12, 1952, and by Adair Pinckney Chapman, Jr., her devoted husband of 72 years, who passed from this life on July 12, 2013. Nancy is survived by one daughter, Nancy Jan Chapman-Green and one son, Larry Lynn Chapman; two granddaughters, Lauren Noland and Kristen Stewart and their mother Sharon Schwartz Chapman; and four great-grandchildren.

Nancy Chapman

Nancy met Adair in the Patti Cobb Cafeteria at Harding College. They married in 1941, and when he felt led to become a minister, she grew to fully embrace her role and responsibilities as a minister’s wife. They shared an urgent call and strong love for those who did not know the Lord. Many years of local Church of Christ ministry were spent in Kansas City, Kan., Athens, Ga., and Port Arthur and Dallas, Texas. Through the First Century Way of the Cross Ministry, a charitable organization created by Adair and Nancy, they were instrumental in planting and strengthening churches across the South and Midwest. Each congregation continues in the Lord’s work today. 

When the ministry established a nursing home in Fort Worth, Texas, to assist elderly ministers and others in need, Nancy became a Certified Dietary Manager to lead that department. Their final work was as strong advocates to address the inner-city Dallas needs of both aging members and the homeless population who attend Main Street Church of Christ (former Peak and Eastside), where Adair served as an elder.

Nancy attended Bible Study Fellowship both as a student and a leader for 23 years. She loved to learn and conscientiously studied her Bible daily. She enjoyed many happy days meeting friends for lunch and playing Duplicate Bridge. Awarded a Lifetime Membership by Texas Garden Clubs, Inc., Nancy lived by her personal motto, “Keep making new friends.” God blessed her family with her continued good mind and radiant smile to the very end.

Nancy left an enormous legacy of love, wisdom, faith, and prayer “without ceasing.” Her greatest love was for the Lord and her very blessed family. Her very last joyful words to them were, “I love you. I am leaving. I want to go Home. Goodbye! Goodbye! Goodbye! Goodbye!”

Frank Graves

1930-2020

Frank Graves

Frank Winn Graves, 90, arrived in Wichita, Kan., on Jan. 21, 1930, and departed from Pueblo, Colo., Oct. 21, 2020. He graduated from Central High School in 1948 and went to Abilene Christian College from 1948-1950 where he met his future bride, Anna Louise (Pat). He continued his education and went to A&M (now CSU) in 1953 where he received a bachelor’s degree in Animal Husbandry. Frank also joined the Army in 1953 at the tail end of the Korean War and served three years as a clerk typist in Military Specialty Operations. During this time, he married his sweet Pat in 1954. 

Additionally he received his teaching degree and taught mathematics for two years at Keating Jr. High and moved to Pitts Jr. High for one year where he started teaching history. He then moved to East High for six years and continued to teach history. He took a one-year sabbatical to get his master’s degree from New Mexico Highlands University. He laughed about being a slow learner and returned to Central High School where he first started and taught there until he retired in January 1990. 

His teaching was not just limited to school. He also shared his know-ledge and love of history with family by sharing times together in beautiful and special places in Colorado. Many fond memories include picnicking at San Isabel Lake, staying in cabins at the lodge, hiking to Marion Mine, and exploring historical places such as the Alpine Tunnel. 

Frank unselfishly worked hard throughout the years to take care of all of his family’s needs. He spent many summers roofing to earn additional money and also served as treasurer for the Pueblo Education Association until 2000. 

Even more important to Frank was to lead his family spiritually. He had an unending love for the Lord and enjoyed singing and leading the congregation in joyful praise to the Lord. He also taught many classes concerning the history of Christianity and how it relates to current modern day living. His family will always be grateful for his loving example of being a strong Christian husband, father, and friend.  

Frank was preceded in death by his wife, Anna Louise (Pat) Graves and his parents, Birdie Juanita and Frank Funk Graves. Frank was also preceded in death by his three older sisters, Virginia, Betty, and Connie. Frank is survived by his children Patti (Jim) Altmix, Stephen (Carolyn) Graves, and Gayle (Jon) Junker. He was blessed with 11 grandchildren, 11 great-grandchildren, seven nephews and one niece.

A memorial service was held at the Southwest Church of Christ on Saturday, October 24, 2020. 

Max Lynn Dobson

1939-2020

Max Dobson

Max Lynn Dobson claimed victory over this life on Oct. 28, 2020. He walked with God on this earth and is now comforted by his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Max was born on July 27, 1939, in Oklahoma City to Vernon and Geraldine. He was reared by his Uncle Don and Aunt Louise Edwards. Max largely grew up in the rural community of Waukomis, Okla. Farm life aided in his development of a strong work ethic. He attended Pioneer School, where he was an All-State basketball player. Max was awarded a scholarship to play basketball for Henry Iba at Oklahoma State University. He later transferred to Phillips University to play both basketball and baseball. Max earned a Bachelor of Science in Education from Phillips University, a Master of Education from Northwestern Oklahoma State University and a Doctorate of Education from Oklahoma State University. Max married Ramona Vanderwork on June 1, 1958. They were blessed with three children and had a close and loving relationship until her death over 42 years later. Following Ramona’s death, Max married Marilyn Kelly Forrester. Max and Marilyn enjoyed a beautiful marriage for the past 18 years.

In 1966, Max and Ramona moved to Edmond, Okla., where Max had accepted an offer to teach and coach at Oklahoma Christian University. He gave tirelessly to Oklahoma Christian, his students, teams and community. Max was rewarded for his more than 47 years of service to OC. He received the University’s Gaylord Chair of Distinguished Teaching. His professional organization, the Oklahoma Association of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, granted him their annual Honor Award for his contributions to Physical Education. Max also received the Oklahoma Christian Faculty Leadership Award. During his coaching tenure, his baseball teams were consistently successful, including a 3rd place finish in the nation. Max founded the women’s basketball program at Oklahoma Christian, and his basketball teams were also highly successful, including many titles and championships. He had the pleasure of coaching numerous All-Americans in both baseball and basketball. Max was inducted into the Oklahoma Christian University Athletic Hall of Fame in 1995 and the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Baseball Hall of Fame in 1996. He received the OKC Thunder Community Hero Award in 2012 for his work with Edmond’s special needs students. Max was inducted into Oklahoma Christian’s Master Teacher Hall of Fame in 2014. Max’s most treasured reward is the immense and positive impact he had on those he touched. For 54 years, Max served Memorial Road Church of Christ. He worked diligently in the church as a teacher, deacon and elder. Max was an exemplary husband, father, grandfather, brother, teacher, coach, mentor, friend and man of God. Max’s family cherishes their time spent with him. He was a bright light in each of their lives, showering them with love, care and much humor. Max’s ultimate goal and greatest mission was to make it to heaven, which he has now achieved.

Max was preceded in death by his beloved wife, Ramona; his sister, Lana Pray; his father, Vernon; his mother, Geraldine; his Uncle Don and Aunt Louise. Max is survived by his dedicated and loving wife, Marilyn; his three children, Tami Robbins, Todd Dobson and Teri Mueller and their spouses Bill Robbins, Dee Dobson and Scott Mueller; step-daughter Anna Jane Perrey and her husband Chris; seven granddaughters; three grandsons; one great-granddaughter and one great-grandson. He is also survived by his brother, Gary Dobson, and sister, Judy Lamb.

Sue Wilson

Stella “Sue” Wilson 

86

Oct. 25, 2020

Edmond, Okla. 

Sandra Day

Sandra Day

74

Aug. 27, 2020

Midwest City, Okla. 

With Appreciation

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