John Shearer: Random Thoughts About Wesley Memorial, Reporters, Joe Decosimo, Precept Farm And Eastdale Site

My wife, Laura, is a retired United Methodist pastor, and a few weeks back I was with her and the local retired ministers at their monthly fellowship gathering at Park Place Restaurant in Fort Oglethorpe.

District Supt. the Rev. Mickey Rainwater was there, and someone asked him to share about Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church at 6314 East Brainerd Road near Lee Highway selling its building and planning its next step as a currently smaller congregation. He did and mentioned that the church was now meeting in part of Brainerd United Methodist Church.

He might not have known I write some stories for the media, but I quickly thought that might make an interesting story for the larger Chattanooga community. That is in part because the aesthetically pleasing church had been a visible Chattanooga landmark since the mid-20^th century.

A few weeks later, I emailed the Holston Conference district office a couple of times saying I thought it might make an interesting story. I did not hear back and decided to try and reach someone by phone, as is probably the more recommended reporting tactic.

I was making plans to do that when I saw in the Times Free Press this week a story by Andrew Schwartz on those very plans, and that the Wesley Memorial church building was now occupied by Cornerstone Apostolic Church under Pastor Raymond Sloan. In other words, I got scooped.

And to add insult to injury, I saw that it was the most popular story on the Times Free Press’ website for a day or at least a few hours. Although I write mostly feature stories or columns as just a freelance contributor these days, I should have still known better than to sit too long on a story of public interest.

But I had previously gone to the Chattanooga Public Library and gathered through old news clippings some historical information on the old Wesley Memorial Church and not in any other recent media story, so I will at least share that. The church’s founding had evidently been in 1942, when the Methodist Church leadership under District Supt. W.F. Blackard decided the East Brainerd area needed a Methodist church.

Interested families began meeting in a farmhouse at the site beginning on Easter Sunday 1944 under Dr. W.M. Morrell, who came out of retirement to lead the church. The current church sanctuary was dedicated with its first service on Feb. 6, 1949, under the direction of the Rev. Earl G. Hunt Jr.

It was said at the time to be the first colonial-style Methodist Church in the entire Holston Conference, although I could not find the architect through some brief research.

Its two educational wings were added in 1954 and 1956.

The church over the years was also led by two future bishops, a unique accomplishment for a mid-sized or somewhat small United Methodist church. Rev. Hunt went on to become president of Emory and Henry College and a bishop serving the Charlotte, N.C., area for 12 years. His accomplishments in the latter position included appointing the first-ever black district superintendent in the Southeastern Jurisdiction of the church.

As an older man, he came back to preach at Wesley Memorial’s 50^th anniversary in 1994. The co-pastors at the time of that happening were the husband and wife team of the Revs. Rusty and Dindy Taylor. Dindy Taylor would go on to be elected as a bishop in 2004 and later serve as the first woman bishop of Holston Conference.

I also saw that another minister in recent decades was the late Rev. Cabel Trent, whom I became acquainted with when Laura served at the large Church Street United Methodist in downtown Knoxville. He was a visitation minister by then who was semi-retired, but he was always extremely attentive to any church member in need, usually putting that ahead of his own personal needs. He also had his own sense of humor.

The current pastor of Wesley Memorial is the Rev. Joshua Felton. Best wishes to both churches as they move forward in their new locations.

And speaking of the Times Free Press, I understand that Mike Pare has retired after more than 40 years as a local reporter, most recently as a business-related writer. He and I and former state legislature reporter Mike Finn were all hired within a few weeks of each other at the old Chattanooga News-Free Press in the summer of 1984.

Both Mikes were natural reporters, while I was more of a feature writer who found myself also having to occasionally cover a hard news story by assignment. I remember that Mike Pare, despite his seemingly quiet demeanor, hustled to find stories to report on almost immediately after arriving from a Rome, Ga., paper. And he never stopped after that.

He and Dave Flessner, who formerly worked at the Times before joining the merged Times Free Press and retiring a year or so ago to become a correspondent, were both hustling reporters with an obvious competitive bent. Mike Pare also while at the old Free Press met and married his wife, Cindy Wooten Pare from North Carolina, after his former wife had unfortunately died.

Mike and Dave documented changes in Chattanooga over recent decades like no others other than maybe former colleague John Vass and chattanooga.com publisher John Wilson. Local historians of the future will no doubt appreciate their work. Best wishes to Mike, who newspaper readers might not realize pronounces his last name like “Perry.”

I had also noticed that the Times Free Press has hired Daniel Dassow as a new business reporter. He went to Chattanooga Christian School and was profiled in Chattanoogan.com in 2023 for being named a prestigious graduating Torchbearer at the University of Tennessee for his student newspaper editing work. The person writing the story on him was I!

Another person in the news was longtime CPA firm and business advising official Joe Decosimo, who turned 100 last week. Congratulations to him for his seemingly honorable life of accomplishment and service.

Back when I was at the Free Press, I would occasionally receive a nice letter or maybe even an early morning call from him thanking me for a story and sharing his connection to the topic. I once wrote about former University of Georgia dean of students William Tate and his connection to McCallie School as a former teacher, and he wrote me a kind note, saying Dean Tate had been helpful to him when he went to Georgia.

I think I also chronicled his memories of the Mountain City Club when I helped them write a history, and he was helpful to me then as well.

I just remember thinking how organized and conscientious he must have been to have written me a personal letter amid his busy schedule in those pre-email days.

I had also in a recent story written briefly about the passing of Christian author and Precept ministries leader Kay Arthur at age 91. Like many historians, I wanted to know not just that her ministry had begun as a Bible study for teenagers in April 1969 at her and husband Jack’s Sims Drive home in Red Bank, but what the exact address was.

I went to the library this week and learned the home was at 198 Sims Drive. At the time, Jack was an associate pastor under the Rev. John Lanham at Calvary Bible Church by Mountain Creek and Morrison Springs roads. He also worked as the station manager with WKES radio station for the Keswick company.

The Bible studies were evidently quite popular and soon branched into additional regular studies for high school and college students also at the home of Dr. and Mrs. Robert Benson on the UTC campus, at 6127 Airways Blvd., and in Dunlap.

In 1970, the Arthurs along with Carl Vaughn and Donna Jolley announced that more than 30 acres at 7324 Noah Reid Road in East Brainerd were being purchased, and the plans were to make it a facility for young people as part of its Reach Out ministry program.

The facility was to be a wholesome place for teens to come for fun, recreation and relaxation. Christian teaching programs were also to be part of the offerings at the facility, and Mrs. Arthur said a Christian high school at the site was not out of the long-term possibility.

The first two newspaper stories about the Arthurs’ ministry were evidently written by David Cooper, the brother of Clint Cooper, who writes the Chattanooga Free Press’ editorial page editorials for the Times Free Press.

The ministry grew into Precept ministries at the site, and the land was put on the market in January 2024 after officials said they no longer needed an on-site campus for conferences and camps. It sits north of Shallowford Road and just west of Standifer Gap Road.

I have never been there but would like to see it sometime. I did recently visit another place of even more undeveloped acreage in Chattanooga. With all the breaking news about the state being interested in 162 acres off Tunnel Boulevard in Eastdale for the Moccasin Bend Mental Health Institute, I wanted to better visualize where it is.

So, as I was coming back to my Northgate area home Friday afternoon after being in East Ridge and North Georgia, I drove by it. To get there, you can either turn north off Wilcox Boulevard (away from Brainerd Road), and it is on your right about two miles away.

It is also accessible from Lightfoot Mill Road along South Chickamauga Creek a much shorter distance away on the other end. It is across the street from New United Missionary Baptist Church at 2629 Tunnel Blvd.

Since it is closed to the public apparently, I just drove by it and took a couple of pictures. It looked like there was a small field on or adjacent to the property, and it seemed like nice and mostly unspoiled acreage.

My big question, and one in which I could probably answer with a little digging, is who historically over the last few decades owned this land? Records apparently say Ashish Chaudhari owns the land now, but I wonder who owned it in the 20^th century.

American mental hospitals have for more than a century sometimes provided pastoral settings to aid in the treatment programs, with the former grounds of what is now Lakeshore Park in Knoxville one example.

Whether this is the right place for a mental hospital in terms of all the residential development around it is to be debated as well.

Some with a bent toward wanting more parkland in Chattanooga would also love to see it become like a Greenway Farm of Eastdale. Or maybe at least part of the 162 acres could be a city park instead of it all being completely fenced off for a hospital, some might hope.

It is not too far from the Sterchi Farm trailhead of the South Chickamauga Creek Greenway.

Regardless of what happens, local news reporters will be waiting to get the big scoop when the plans for this hidden gem of greenspace become official. There will also likely be no sitting on that story, either!

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Jcshearer2@comcast.net