This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.
37 close of the service, nor did a single member of the congregation. She was heart-broken. As a result, Ed undertook in a lawyerly fashion to explain and explore with the Presbytery's Commission on the Minister what had transpired. After a series of correspondences, which the local church's ruling body for the most part ignored, years later Ed was advised that the two persons who were the dominant leaders of the ruling body had both resigned their positions, the minister had been reassigned and that steps were being taken to change the bylaws of this church so that the ruling body would be elected for only three-year terms in the future. Astoundingly, he was asked if this met with his approval, to which he responded immediately, affirmatively and with a "Praise the Lord!" He had only been a nominal Christian when this matter had been broached; he had grown much and closer to his Lord in the meantime. He still, nevertheless, had a long, long way to go. Back in Mississippi, the immediate thought back in 1967 was then to tear down the manse to make room for a new one. To this end, a building committee was formed under the chairmanship of Scotty Thomson. On the committee were Kenneth Teague, John Middleton, Max Dossett, Mrs. Mac Canaga, Mrs. May Coover, John Landon and Camille Schaefer . Resigning from the Diaconate at about this time were Robert Warner and John McPhail, the latter thought soon to be moving with his family to Florida. The Session thereafter met with the Reverend W.F. Stanway, Chairman of the Commission on the Minister, and, on September 15, 1967, the Reverend Bonner requested that the pastoral relationship between him and the church be dissolved. To be noted was that the church budgets for these two years were $17,852 for 1967 and only $13,711 for the next, reflecting the changing circumstances in and of the church. Nevertheless, life going on, on April 2nd of the next year, the following young people were received into membership of the church: Donna Kay Sick, Warren LeRoy Sick, John Allen Klock, Elden Michael McLaurin, Joseph William Reid, Melody Ann
First Presbyterian Church History-of-the-First-Presbyterian-Church-41