On a clear night look up to the night sky and admire the beautiful display of stars. There are so many! Some are bright and others dim, but they all twinkle with a certain measure of vibrancy and enthusiasm. Did you ever wonder though how those stars stay in place, how they are supported and what keeps them where they are, shining as points in a constellation allowing the early sailors to sail the seven seas so accurately? Returning to Earth and streaming into a metaphor, look at the bright stars we have in the human race. Take Maverick of "Top Gun" fame; though he was not a "real" person, there are many pilots in the Navy like him. But have you thought to "look" at what's behind these stars, both in the astronomical view and the human?
Each is supported by a framework that, though invisible to the human eye, is so much bigger than the actual star and with so much more influence. Scientists believe that 22 percent of the universe is made up of very hard to see matter, but this "stuff", by the effect of its gravity, is truly what determines the unfolding of space and the galaxies with-in it. And what you don't see behind the façade of a Naval Aviator are the thousands of individuals who go about their jobs supporting this "star", but actually having so much more influence.
Now you may be asking yourself, what in the Lord's name has the above got to do with Central Church Elder Jack Faulkner? Read on.
Though he wasn't born in as deep an area of the woods as Johnny B Goode, it was close, and one state to the east. The youngest of three children, two older sisters preceding him, he was born in 1938 near Batesville, Mississippi. His Dad was a farmer, raising an eclectic mix of animals and crops. He attended a four room schoolhouse near his home and went to High School in Pope.
His childhood goal of being a teacher and coach came to fruition after he graduated from Delta State, in Cleveland, Mississippi in 1960. He was immediately hired to teach 7th and 8th grade sharecroppers' kids science and math and coach the same in baseball and basketball. The school was near his hometown. Unfortunately, his schoolboy delusions of teaching grandeur were dashed by the stark realization that teaching a mix of mostly part-time and some full-time students, due to the customary ways of the Deep South's sharecroppers back then, was exasperating and depressing.
Being disillusioned with his initial career choice Jack joined the Navy as an Officer in 1961 and went to Pensacola NAS (Naval Air Station) in Florida and was one of 6 of 400 applicants to be accepted for their aviation program. But instead of taking the path most traveled, becoming a pilot, he diverted his career a bit more and chose a new type of rating being offered for a Naval Aviator: Tactical Coordinator.
Jack flew on an early version of an AWACS type aircraft, an airborne radar picket aircraft called an EC-121 and flew missions, 2 years worth (late 1962 to late 1964), between Midway island and the westernmost reaches of the Aleutian islands in Alaska. His job was to decipher the multitude of radar contacts that the EC-121 radar operators saw and determine friend from enemy, good intent from bad. The cold war was heating up back then and though the waters he flew over were cold and dark, as could be the sky at times as the flights lasted anywhere from 11 to 16 hours, there were some pretty sweaty moments when a contact couldn't be positively identified as friend or foe. Many "snooping" type aircraft were lost back then and their crews never found. Jack was truly on the front lines of a new and different type of war.
After serving 2 years guarding America's western frontier, Jack found solace in a staff position at NAS Memphis (Millington). There, he was in charge of detailing and writing training manuals for the Navy's enlisted folks. The list of manuals was seemingly endless and involved almost every aspect of Naval Aviation. The position required a smart, detail oriented person with a calm and patient demeanor. Jack was the perfect person.
As Jack wound down from worrying about threats on radar, there was one threat that snuck in unobserved. Marilyn! A devout Christian and schoolteacher, she and Jack were introduced to each in 1965 by a friend, and they married a year later. Must have been that Navy uniform!
Marilyn said she always wanted to travel. She came from Jackson, Tennessee, and she got her prayer as she and Jack moved from Memphis to Patuxant NAS, Virginia and then to New Orleans to the Naval Station there. His last base of assignment, before retiring from the Navy in 1982, was Millington.
While Jack was based in Millington the first time, he got his Masters in Guidance Counseling, and, armed with his degree, he set his sights on the educational battleground again. He wound up teaching 7th and 8th graders, his old nemeses, in Germantown, while he waited for a guidance counselor position to open up. Four years later one did, in Collierville High School, and he went there with hopes of influencing young men and women into dreams that fit their attributes and abilities. He retired from his second career field in 1999.
Jack has been stalwart in his faith throughout his life. His parents, though attending different churches, Methodist and Baptist, taught him the benefits of both and of the greater good in that we are all "parts" that make up the body of Christianity on Earth.
Marilyn too has always been very devout, raised in a very Christian family, and she added even more stability to an already morally strong and stoic gentlemen.
Together the two of them joined Central Church in 1982, began helping out in the nursery, in addition to attending Church services, and as their two adopted children, Drew and Katie grew, they progressively taught older and older Sunday school classes. Eventually they began assisting Sam Wiley and Church Elder Frank Bartozzi with their singles classes, filling in as chaperones, spiritual confidants and advisors. Jack became an Elder in 1994.
Jack is not a man you will see hanging from a chandelier at a party or raising Cain at a Church retreat. He is reticent and demure, but, do not let his humbleness fool you. He, and many others like him, is a medium that allows the "stars", the more flamboyant Christians, to float in the sky and illuminate the way for us, the congregation. We look up to these stars and use their guidance, but what we don't see is that which supports the star. Jack has worked in the background most of his life, making secure the environment for the stars to shine and providing a positive synergy to them. It is a symbiotic relationship for each. His importance to the body of the Church cannot be understated.
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