{"id":236701,"date":"2013-01-27T08:14:02","date_gmt":"2013-01-27T14:14:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ktbb.com\/post\/?p=236701"},"modified":"2013-01-28T16:08:17","modified_gmt":"2013-01-28T22:08:17","slug":"lon-morris-remembered-at-celebration-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=236701","title":{"rendered":"Lon Morris Remembered at Celebration Service"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ktbb.com\/post\/?attachment_id=236702\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-236702\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2013\/01\/thumb_Lon-Morris-Sign2.jpg\" alt=\"thumb_Lon-Morris-Sign\" width=\"148\" height=\"120\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-236702\" \/><\/a>JACKSONVILLE \u2014 Hundreds turn out for a bittersweet \u201cfinal homecoming\u201d Saturday at Jacksonville\u2019s First United Methodist Church: a celebration of the life and ministry of fading Lon Morris College. The sermon was delivered by Rev. Ted Campbell, an alumnus who\u2019s now an associate professor at SMU\u2019s Perkins School of Theology. Campbell said, \u201cThe loss of the college is very much like the loss of a family member.\u201d He harked back to Lon Morris\u2019s heyday, when \u201cperson-to-person education was a hallmark.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Longtime faculty member Peter Hoheisel echoed Campbell\u2019s feelings about the college\u2019s classroom intimacy. With the growth of computer-based education, Hoheisel told KTBB of his fear that we\u2019ll be seeing less of \u201cthis type of college, where you would have an actual relationship with a teacher \u2014 small class size, fifteen, sixteen.\u201d Professor Emeritus Dr. Jimmie Reese led a prayer and a statement of faith during the service. Speaking to us afterwards, Reese called his 39 years at Lon Morris \u201ca tremendous journey for me\u2026an absolutely superb time.\u201d The saddest thing of all, says Reese: \u201cThis did not need to happen. It was preventable.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>After the service, many attendees headed across town, where the dormant campus\u2019s Scurlock Center came alive one more time with a sale of branded Lon Morris merchandise. Officials say money raised from the sale will be given to employees who have missed paychecks since the school\u2019s financial troubles began. Lon Morris is now going through bankruptcy proceedings; on February 4, a federal bankruptcy judge will take up results of a recent auction at which the college\u2019s property was sold off. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>JACKSONVILLE \u2014 Hundreds turn out for a bittersweet \u201cfinal homecoming\u201d Saturday at Jacksonville\u2019s First United Methodist Church: a celebration of the life and ministry of fading Lon Morris College. The sermon was delivered by Rev. Ted Campbell, an alumnus who\u2019s now an associate professor at SMU\u2019s Perkins School of Theology. Campbell said, \u201cThe loss of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=236701\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Lon Morris Remembered at Celebration Service<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-236701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-11 02:41:15","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=236701"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":236918,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236701\/revisions\/236918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=236701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=236701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=236701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}