Another Passing in Pearlington

In a month marred by personal tragedy, another member of the Pearlington community has passed on.

Rev. Samuel "Bush" Burton - a man known and loved in town by all who knew him - was found this morning by his niece beside his truck in the driveway. Details are sketchy at this moment, but I will fill you in on the relevant facts as they become available.

Nell Nation of Cooperative Baptist Fellowship sends this:

"Many of you knew Samuel Bush Burton who rode out the storm in the pecan tree with his nephew and dog. with snakes crawling around. He's the one who asked God to save his tree. He was a preacher for many, many years. Rev. Tommy Broom, pastor of Society Hill Baptist Church near Columbia, MS. had stasrted a new home for Bush. On warm days he would sit in his chair near the street and watch the building go up. He will be sorely missed."

I had planned to print this quote this morning, a gift forwarded to me by John Chickering of Franklin United Methodist Church. It seems somehow appropriate to follow through with that plan....


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how a strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

- Theodore Roosevelt's Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, France, April 23, 1910