Rev. Dr. Henry C. Blount, Jr.
Honored as FUMCA Pastor Emeritus
First United Methodist Church Alexandria will
celebrate the installation of the Reverend Dr.
Henry C. Blount Jr. as Pastor Emeritus during
the 11 a.m. service on Sunday, Dec. 1.
A reception will precede the Dec. 1 installation
service at 10 a.m. in the Gallery Hall of the
church, which is located at 2727 Jackson St. in
Alexandria.
From 1989 to 1995, Dr. Blount served as pastor
at First United Methodist Church Alexandria
(FUMCA) four different times, even after an
attempted retirement in 1992, including service
as minister of visitation and as associate pastor,
during his career of more than 60 years in active
ministry. Blount, 87, has been a United Methodist minister since 1947.
"Henry Blount has been an incredible leader at First United Methodist Church and in the
Louisiana Conference," said the Rev. Donnie Wilkinson, who is senior pastor at FUMCA.
"Many of my closest friends in ministry through the years were deeply influenced by Dr.
Blount's ministry and many of them are pastors today because they saw in him Christ and he saw
something in them that was called into ministry," Rev. Wilkinson said.
"As for the position of Pastor Emeritus, First United Methodist Church has a long and great
tradition, and Henry Blount's right at the center of that tradition for the last few decades," Rev.
Wilkinson said.
"This Pastor Emeritus role is a way of celebrating how Henry has been there for the church
during good times and in bad. He's been a source of strength, a source of encouragement, a
source of stability in tumultuous times, and for all his years of faithful, dedicated servanthood at
First United Methodist Church, we want to honor him with the highest honor that a pastor can
receive, being named Pastor Emeritus," Rev. Wilkinson said.
"The 'Pastor Emeritus' is a way of honoring someone who's been an important member of the
congregation, an important leader in the congregation, even after their retirement, while they're
still alive, to say 'we hold you in a special place in our heart and you will always be a pastor in
this congregation.' This role is a ceremonial role, has no responsibilities but lots of honor, and
just a way of saying, 'Henry, we love you, and we so appreciate everything you've done for First
United Methodist Church through the years," Rev. Wilkinson added.
On a personal note, Rev. Wilkinson said that when he was appointed at FUMCA "and began to
look at the scope of need here in this congregation, it was very easy to begin to be kind of
overwhelmed."
"But then, shortly after the first week or so, Henry and I sat down and he began to share with me
some of the stories of the church, and he's been someone who's encouraged me," he said.
"Every week he comes through and he has a strong word of encouragement about the service,
about what's going on at the church, and he's somebody that I look to for counsel and advice as
we move forward," Rev. Wilkinson said. "He has more years of experience as a pastor than I
probably ever will and he helps me as we are dreaming our way forward, and it's great to be able
to tap into that source of wisdom as we move into the future," he said.
Different circumstances led to Blount's four-time tenure at FUMCA that began due to the death
of his predecessor. Blount was serving as the Ruston District Superintendent in 1988 when thenBishop William Oden called. "My plans were to go to Lake Charles and open a Samaritan
Counseling Center, and the bishop, (and) the cabinet, had other plans, so here I am," he said.
"Tracy Arnold was before me and he had a heart attack," Blount said. Arnold died Nov. 21,
1988. "I came in March of the next year ... and the church, of course, was grieving over the loss
and I guess I helped bridge the gap, in a healing kind of way," he said.
The illness of another pastor also contributed to the circumstances that kept Blount in
service at FUMCA.
"They called me back three times other than the time I was senior pastor and retired -- I came
back, and finally settled in as an associate, and stayed until about '99." Blount agreed there
was "a lot of overlapping," adding that "I've served, in other words, different places in the
church -- wherever there was a need, I tried to fill it."
During his pastorate, a financial campaign to build the church's Johnson Activities
Center ensued and Disciple Bible Study had just begun. Blount described a theme of his time as
FUMCA pastor as spiritual formation, saying, "I wanted to help deepen the spiritual life and let
people know that they're not bodies with a spirit, they're spirit with a body."
Asked about being honored as Pastor Emeritus, Blount said, "Well, I never thought I would
receive an honor like that, and it's certainly one that I will cherish as long as I live."
Ruth Brooks, a FUMCA member since 1970, has known Dr. Blount and his family for many
years.
"Henry Blount has been as Christ for many of us. He is my teacher, my friend and my
inspiration. I am grateful for his role in my spiritual development as well as his role in the
spiritual development in the lives of my family members. He has been with our family through
the joy of weddings and he has been with us in times of great sadness and sorrow," she said.
"I cherish the memory of a multitude of shared meals between our two families. What a joy to
celebrate Henry as our Pastor Emeritus!" Brooks said.
Allyson Marlowe, a FUMCA member since the mid-1980s, said, "Obviously, he's very special to
us -- he married Lee and I and baptized Maddy. He means a lot to our family. His faith and
wisdom are very inspirational to us. I'm very pleased the church has extended this honor to Dr.
Blount."
Longtime FUMCA member Paul White Sr. described Blount as "a very close personal friend
with my whole family, has been at least 20 years, maybe even longer than that."
“I think it’s great that he is going to be our minister emeritus," White said. "I think it’s very late,
I think it should have been done 15 years ago because he’s been so active in our church all those
years, loves all the congregation that he serves," he said.
"He’s one of the best writers that I’ve read when it comes to the preaching part of it. He writes a
lot of articles for (CenLa) Focus magazine and most of them are outstanding," White said. "And
then of course he’s a self-made artist, and he’s made me buy a lot of his pictures," he added with
a laugh.
"Henry's a very easy person to like and to love, and he knows so many people and everybody
who knows him loves him. You never heard anybody criticize Henry except that sometimes he's
too lazy to do work, you know, but other than that he's all right," he said, laughing.
"It'll be our first preacher that's become emeritus as far as I know in the history of the church,
and I've been going to the church since 1928," White said.
The Rev. Gary Van Horn, a retired United Methodist pastor who now serves as FUMCA's
minister of visitation, said he's known Dr. Blount since 1969.
"Henry has been a leader in the United Methodist Church as long as I've known him, a true
leader in his life and in the work he's done," Van Horn said.
BACKGROUND
Henry Clayton Blount Jr. was born in Philadelphia, Miss. "I came from a Christian home in
Mississippi, the youngest of six children. My dad was an educator and businessman. He was also
a Sunday School teacher. I grew up in the Methodist church, you might say, and when I was 14 I
taught in the youth department," he said.
"It was in the Navy during World War II, serving as a radar/technician on a destroyer escort,
looking for 'enemy' submarines in the North Atlantic, when I made a decision for the ministry
and I felt the call then -- I talked to the chaplain and he said, 'Oh, you're just homesick,' and I
said, 'Well, I don't know what you call it but I feel the call to ministry,' so when I got out, I went
to Millsaps College in Jackson and the rest is history."
Blount was a student pastor at Northside Methodist Church in Canton, Miss., while at Millsaps.
"As a student, I had to hitch-hike every Sunday to get there and I always made it on time,
because then people would pick up hitch-hikers," he said.
Blount also met his wife, the late Marilyn Speede, while in college. She was the president of the
Methodist student movement on Belhaven campus in Jackson, Miss., while he was the president
of the Methodist student movement on Millsaps campus, also in Jackson. Both met on the
Greyhound bus traveling to Lake Junaluska, N.C., as representatives of their respective schools.
"I said to her, 'I don't think we've met,' and she said, 'You're right, we haven't.' Period," he said,
laughing.
Blount attended Emory University in Atlanta, Ga., and the Iliff School of Theology in Denver,
Colo. He planned to move back to Mississippi and his home conference but the bishop had no
openings at that time. With a wife and daughter by then, Blount stayed in Louisiana and has been
here ever since.
"I answered an ad that Fi
rst Methodist in Monroe needed an associate and youth director, so Marilyn and I drove over and
interviewed with Dr. H.L. Johns, whose daughter Hope Norman is a member of this church -- I
think that's an interesting twist," Blount said.
"I consider Hope as sort of part of my extended family because her dad is the one who gave me
my first job in Louisiana," he said. "That's how it all happened -- and I just never got back to
Mississippi."
Blount also described Dr. Guy M. Hicks, who was FUMCA pastor 1946 to 1948 and 1957 to
1965, as "an inspiration of mine" during the course of his career. Hicks died in 1968.
"He was my mentor, you might say, and person I looked up to as one who could help me because
he had served this church, so I certainly was dependent on him at first," Blount said. "We
experienced a caring congregation at FUMCA to the extent that we chose to stay in Alexandria"
upon his attempted 1992 retirement.
"It reaches out, a church that reaches out and is concerned about missions and, you know,
compassion for the indigent. It's just a wonderful church. It's a wonderful, caring, compassionate
church," he said.
Blount said one of his favorite missions was going to Cuba, where he went four times during the
course of his career, even before Fidel Castro took over after Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista
was overthrown in 1959 as a result of the Cuban Revolution led by Castro. "Then, after Castro
became a little bit more lenient in the '90s, I went back," he said.
FUMCA members shared in the Cuba Initiative mission on three separate occasions in 1995,
1996 and 1997 -- joined by Blount on one trip -- that was sponsored by the Louisiana Annual
Conference, according to a 1997 church history.
Marilyn died July 5, 2006, at age 78. "We had 57 years together," Blount said, as well as five
children -- three daughters and two sons. He married the former Joann Collins in 2010. "Joann is
my wife now and she has more Texas in her than Louisiana, though she was born in Jonesville,"
he said.
"Her husband and my wife were in Kingsley Place, at that time it was called, and he was right
across the hall from her, and both had similar diseases, not the same but under the heading as
Alzheimer's," Blount said. "I saw her and spoke to her and we got acquainted, more or less," he
said.
Blount has written two books published by Land and Land of Baton Rouge.
"It was mostly in the '80s and early '90s. I was in Ruston when I wrote one of them, 'Soul
Sounds,' and then I was in Baton Rouge when I wrote 'Looking for Honey.' (They are)
inspirational type, meditation type, reflections on Scripture and reflection on life situations and
the things that I think are appropriate and relevant to today's living," he said.
Blount also writes a column for CenLa Focus monthly magazine. "And I still find a lot of
satisfaction in my watercolors and my garden," he said.
"This is the most artsy church I've ever been in, and, since I've piddled with watercolors, I sure
found an art home here," he added. "I taught art down at the museum for several years and I was
president of the Tom Peyton Art Festival for two years straight, once when I was retired and
once when I was still active."
by Bill Sumrall
FUMCA Communications Assistant