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Posted on: Jan 18, 2023 at 8:22 PM

Hi Jody, I have thought of you since our 50th anniversary at Broughton and hoped that you are happy. Are you considering going to our 60th? I hope to, although I’m not sure yet. Please drop me a note and let me know how you are and what you have been doing. Mary Bright. Marybrightwells@gmail.com.

Posted on: Jan 18, 2023 at 8:15 PM

Hi Judy, I’ve been looking for your updated profile on our Broughton site. Are you planning on going to our 60th anniversary? Whew! Hard to believe. I hope to see you there…or just to hear from you and your news in the last years. Love, mary bright…

Hi Ann, I was looking for your updated profile…and hoping to see you at our 60th Broughton anniversary. Whew! Hard to comprehend, isn’t it? Drop me a note. I’m living between the Houston area and a small island in the Caribbean. Where are you living now? Hope to see you in June.

Posted on: Feb 01, 2022 at 2:45 PM

I realize it's been a while since your very sad Christmas, and though this is late, please take this little note in a way that will hopefully be encouraging. You may not remember me from high school, I was a whatever back then that today I am ashamed of. Why? Because I was a lost human being. Obnoxious I would describe myself back then. But after quite a successful venture in the music world with a couple of hit records, i came to the end of myself. I gave my life to the Lord. Yes. The Lord Jesus Christ. God in the form of a human being. The Savior of the world, who gave Himself on a cruel cross that the world might be saved. Well, that's enough preaching. But the beautiful thing is that I was able to escape being religious and instead have enjoyed almost 52 years of a great marriage. I ruined it for the first two years. Unfaithful as well as doing all kinds of drugs. But on May 19th, after giving my career in music to follow Jesus –– the day music really died–– I came home that afternoon to my wife, and said, "We need to talk." But she knew it already which I will explain after this one part. I sat her down and began. "I'll give you the bad news first. I've quit the band. I no longer have a job. But the good news is I have given Jesus Christ my life. And if you can possibly forgive me, I promise to be the husband you have never had and the daddy our two girls have never had." Linda not only forgave me but has never ever thrown my wretched past up in my face. Together we have ministered all over the world. But most importantly, we have learned God. And that's where I want to hopefully give you some support, love, and encouragement for the future after such a great loss. First, the greatest event in history was the death of Jesus on a Cross. Through His sacrifice of Love for the world, He made a way for all who trust in Him to live way beyond this earth. We have in Christ a rich, free, ETERNAL LIFE. Your husband is in a place of such delight that he can hardly wait for you to join not just him, but the whole of mankind who celebrate in a realm of something way beyond what we have ever experienced in this earth. And secondly, in the book of Hebrews, chapter 12, Paul speaks about a great "crowd of witnesses"–– those who have gone before us who join with JESUS, who prays for you day and night. In other words, your husband has gone ahead of you to cheer you and your family, and his family, and all the friends you have made together, HE PRAYS AND CHEERS FOR YOU TO LIVE ABUNDANTLY NOW IN VIEW OF WHAT IS WAITING FOR YOU AHEAD. It gives me great joy to be able to share this with you, and I do so out of the experience of an intimate relationship with you that is more real than li itself. And i close with this prayer: O Lord, mister to Martha Butler your peace. A peace that passes her possible mental understanding. Thank God she does not have to understand what I have been saying, but she can believe it by faith. Spaak words of comfort and peace to her that YOU WILL FILL UP EVERY EMPTY PLACE LEFT BY HER HUSBAND. Yes you will because you are real. Your love is real. And Martha is still here because you are not yet finished with her. Make her days ahead to be the best days of her life because a she turns loose of the past she can and will have a bright and fruitful future ahead. As Scripture revels, 'Death has been swallowed up in Victory.' "YOUR VICTORY OVER DEATH, HELL, AND THE GRAVE." Bless you Martha and thank you for reading this from the new heart of an old classmate. With Love, Ken Helser

Hope you have a wonderful Birthday

Happy upcoming birthday, Emily! I pray all is going well for you and your family !

Posted on: Jan 07, 2019 at 7:26 PM

Happy Birthday Betty. I hope we can get together soon. It was nice to see you at the Diva Luncheon. I will

Happy Birthday Betty. Let’s not let another 50 years go by without



Happy Birthday Betty. I hope we can get together soon. I will call Roxanne next week.

Posted on: May 02, 2016 at 2:11 PM

Thanks for your good wishes.

Posted on: Feb 03, 2016 at 12:40 PM

When I read this morning about the incredibly difficult times Carolyn has had, with her husband's battle with Parkinson's disease, to her own battle with numerous health issues, and just when she thought perhaps she was getting a handle on these things, she finds out she has another cancer found in her breast. I was so heart broken, and went to just sit with Jesus for a while. During my time with Him I confessed that life just does not seem fair for some folks, especially right now for Carolyn... "Lord, I was such a 'hell raiser' and Carolyn was always full of kindness and love. I can still see her smile, and remember her precious family and going to a birthday party for her.. probably when she was 10 or so. She was so pretty that I thought then about asking her to be my girlfriend, but I couldn't. She was so nice that I thought of her more being the sister that I never had than being a girlfriend. Besides, Lord, whenever you get a girlfriend it lasts for usual a short while and you end up breaking up and then you never speak again. Awkward at 10, at 12, and then the teen years, it's damaging those crazy relationships. So, we remained friends. We graduated together and I remember how pretty she was in cap and gown when all the seniors sat together at Forest Hills Baptist Church and were honored that Sunday in 1963... and now, as I look at her photo from that year, all I can think is what a beautiful lady. What a child of God! And me such a jerk, yet you saved me, came into my life, redeemed me, made me new, and here I am now in a healthy body with a healthy family, and I sit and think, 'God, some things don't seem fair,' yes, but there's got to be more. Not looking for fairness, but Lord Jesus, I'm looking for you. I want somehow through this mysterious thing called prayer, to pray something, believe somehow in You, or perhaps just reach out to You, right now, for you to touch and heal my sister Carolyn. O God, meet her in the Spirit in such a way that she is comforted and lifted up from the terrible pit she's in right now. Send an angel. Send Holy Spirit. Do whatever for her to find this about you. And Lord, I believe this is more powerful than the attack of the enemy, that YOU, O God, as it is written in Your divine Word, You are the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom suffered for the whole world... "For just as the sufferings of Christ flow into our lives, so also though Christ our comfort overflows." II Corinthians 1:5 O God, for all of us who love Carolyn, let the comfort that we have found in You, supernaturally flow out of us to her now. Comfort her, Most High God. And Carolyn, this is the best that I can do in prayer for you right now. I am more sorry than I can express for the battle you are in and I will not let you leave my heart and prayers for you. Love you so much and send that Love of God from my own life to you. Blessings, Ken Helser

Posted on: Aug 27, 2015 at 7:59 AM

Perhaps Billy would not want me to tell this but what do I have to lose... Billy and Robert Howard formed a little duet group of themselves singing the old folk songs of the early 60's... Peter, Paul, and Mary, The Kingston Trio, and others. I loved to sing and actually learned to play guitar from Robert. But the day came that I wanted to play with them. I had an informal audition with Robert, sining the song, "Hand down your head, Tom Dooly hang down your head and cry..." And Robert really liked it. He came alive until the old black gospel sound that I learned from my nannie, "Aunt Coralee" came out. He stopped. He commended me in part but let me know quickly, "Ken, you just got too much black in you to be able to sing folk music. Go join a black band." Great advice though it broke my heart. REJECTION. But Robert was right, for a few years later I began playing horn with an all black band from Carlboro, "The Swinging Flamingos." I loved it. The only blue eyed member of the band, me, loved it and did well. As a freshman at NC State and playing in a black group on weekends, it was heaven on earth except for one thing: I wanted to sing. Finally that day came when Irven Hicks asked me to become the lead singer in a group called, "The Tassels." And from there it was history. We ended up forming with a few of the Swinging Medallion's "Double Shot of My Baby's Love" guys a new band called "The Pieces of Eight," and "Lonely Drifter" rose to into the top 40 all over the nation. Finally, after great success, just before touring with "The Alman Brother's Band," I gave my life, my heart, my everything, to Jesus and followed Him. God restored my broken marriage, my health, my all, and as I write this on my 27th trip to Norway, with my wife of 49 years beside me, I look back with no regrets and am so glad I got delivered out of rock and roll to be able to sing and write the greatest music ever, songs from heaven: Worship! And back to Billy Stinson, I once did a five minute radio show, over 1200 of them to be exact that went all over the country. I interviewed young people whose lives were radially changed from the Jesus Movement of the early 70's and followed each testimony with Christian music, which during that early era of a new sound in Gospel Music, contemporary was unheard of. Somehow, I can't remember exactly the circumstances, I came across an album the Billy and his wife, Sandra made. The cover was black and white and I knew Billy Stinson, the artist, and a great one at that, had drawn it, and I believe it was called "The Merchant Ship." I do know there was a song on it about a merchant ship that he equated to a virtuous woman, that described in the Proverbs 31, and the great line of the song was, "Who can find a virtuous woman... she is like a merchant ship carrying her goods from afar..." So, God Bless Billy and Sandra Stinson who love Jesus, love family, and as he wrote, "I am, thankfully, paddling downstream instead of up..."

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! Hope you have a wonderful day to celebrate 70 years! Love you,Gail

I hope you had a nice birthday celebration for 70 years old. Belated Happy Birthday from me. I live in Atlanta now. Where is Dacula?